Gurgaon-based A.M. Marketplaces Pvt Ltd, which runs social commerce platform LimeRoad.com, has raised $30 million (Rs 188 crore) in Series C round of funding from existing investors led by Tiger Global, the company said on Monday.
Matrix Partners and Lightspeed Venture Partners also participated in the round.
The startup was set up by Suchi Mukherjee, who has worked with the executive management team of Skype, along with Manish Saksena, former COO of Tommy Hilfiger India, and Ankush Mehra, former head of supply chain at Reliance Hypermarkets. The company operates an online social platform for women to discover, share and shop lifestyle products.
The platform covers apparel, accessories, including footwear and bags, as well as home and living.
LimeRoad has been nurturing a hyperactive community that takes products from thousands of sellers from across the country and shows users how to transform, say, even a basic white t-shirt.
The firm says its community posted more than 1.5 million style statements as “scrapbooks†last month alone, with per day postings reaching more than 100,000, achieving 100x growth in less than a year.
Co-founder and CEO Suchi said 80-85 per cent of the firm's orders come from organic traffic. She did not give specific statistics but said LimeRoad's gross merchandise value (GMV) grew 7x in the last 12 months and app usage has grown more than 38 times in the last six months.
Lee Fixel, partner, Tiger Global, said: “The uniqueness of LimeRoad lies in the passionate user base and the mission of providing an engaging platform for smaller brands to thrive. We love this approach and are investing behind it and behind the team executing the strategy.â€
In May 2014, it had raised $15 million in Series B round of funding led by Tiger Global. Lightspeed and Matrix had participated in that round too. In October 2012 Matrix and Lightspeed had co-led a $5 million round of funding in the startup.
Other startups in the social e-commerce space are also attracting investors’ interest. In January, Hyderabad-based Thinkbits Internet Technologies Pvt Ltd, the company behind social commerce startup VioletStreet.com, raised $315,000 (about Rs 2 crore) in angel funding from former Bank of America senior vice president Venkat Vallabhaneni, and angel investor Srinivasa Rao Paturi.
(Edited by Joby Puthuparampil Johnson)