Mpaani Solutions Pvt Ltd which runs LoveLocal, a hyper-local ecommerce platform focused on local retailers, said on Thursday it has raised $18 million (Rs 143 crore) in a pre-Series B financing round led by Vulcan Capital.
The round also saw participation from Klarna founder & CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski’s Flat Capital, Alumni Ventures Group, Commerce Ventures and existing investors Blume Ventures, AC Ventures, HenkelX Ventures, Chiratae Ventures and Candy Ventures.
Angel investors like Nami Zarringhalam, co-founder of Truecaller, Sriram Krishnan, general partner at Andreessen Horowitz, Anna Lambert, director of product acceleration at Shopify, Sarah Jones Simmer, CEO of Found and ex-COO of Bumble, and Arpan Sheth, senior partner at Bain & Company also took part in the round.
LoveLocal said it has seen 40X growth since inception and currently serves over 35 cities and 1,300 pin codes across India. In 18 months, the company said it has signed up more than 100,000 retailers and fulfilled more than a million orders. It is seeing 35% plus month-on-month growth.
Founded in January 2020 by Akanksha Hazari, LoveLocal said it provides a full-stack digitisation platform to local retailers that takes their businesses online, strengthens their consumer relationships, and provides insights so that retailers can manage their businesses more effectively.
“We have always believed in the local retailer. They win on every consumer consideration: service, quality, product selection, value, credit, free delivery and speed of delivery. Local businesses also account for more than 40% of jobs in India. They are a bedrock of our communities and the economy. LoveLocal is bridging the technology gap to ensure that our local retailers not just survive but thrive in India 2.0 and beyond,” Akanksha Hazari, founder & CEO of LoveLocal, said.
LoveLocal’s previous iteration M.Paani was a digitisation platform focused on marketing and data analytics.
