Glance, part of mobile-advertising company InMobi and owner of short-video platform Roposo, on Monday said it will acquire social commerce firm Shop101 that is backed by venture capital firms such as Kalaari Capital and Stellaris Venture Partners.
The acquisition will allow Glance and Roposo access to an e-commerce technology platform and a comprehensive supply chain infrastructure, said Glance in a statement.
The acquisition will also give Glance and Roposo access to the talent base required to build the celebrity and influencer driven commerce platform, it added.
Moreover, the acquisition will enable Shop101’s suppliers to leverage the more than 125 million daily active users of Glance to grow their businesses.
Piyush Shah, co-founder, InMobi Group, and president and chief operating officer, Glance, said that Glance and Roposo are disrupting the way users create, discover, and consume content, making them the preferred platforms for top celebrities and creators to connect with their audience.
"With the addition of Shop101, we aim to make these platforms the top shopping destinations for millions of users as well," he added.
Shop101 was founded in 2015 by IIT Kanpur alumni Abhinav Jain and Aditya Gupta. The company helps small merchants and sellers showcase their products online by helping them create a mobile storefront. Early last year, Shop101 raised Rs 28.69 crore (around $3.9 million) in fresh capital from its existing investors as part of a new funding round. Prior to this, the startup had raised Rs 80 crore in its Series B round of funding in December 2018. The round was led by Kalaari Capital and Unilever Ventures, the investment arm of consumer goods giant Unilever Plc.
Glance is a platform that delivers artificial intelligence-driven content right off the locked screen, or what it calls screen zero. The lock screen comes alive with new visual and interactive content that is personalised for customers when they lift their smartphones. The company said it has partnered with major Android phone makers in India to offer the screen zero experience.
In December last year, Glance had raised $145 million (about Rs 1,070 crore) from Google and Paypal co-founder Peter Thiel’s investment firm Mithril Capital. Prior to this, it had raised $45 million from Mithril Capital.
Glance had acquired Roposo in 2019. Roposo was set up in July 2014 by Indian Institute of Technology-Delhi graduates Mayank Bhangadia, Avinash Saxena and Kaushal Shubhank. It initially started out as a social network for fashion enthusiasts, before pivoting to a video-sharing mobile app in 2017.
Roposo had raised funding from venture capital investors Tiger Global, India Quotient and Bertelsmann India Investments. The investors exited Roposo when Glance acquired the company.