ShopKirana E-Trading Pvt. Ltd, an e-commerce platform, has raised Rs 71.4 crore (around $10 million) in a funding round led by existing investor Info Edge (India) Ltd, which owns portals including job site Naukri.com.
In a stock exchange filing, Info Edge said it has invested Rs 47 crore ($6.6 million at current exchange rate) in buying compulsorily convertible preference shares, that will take its holding to 25.36% of the business-to-business (B2B) entity on conversion.
The Noida-based company said the investment is in line with its strategy of consolidating presence in different segments of the internet services industry.
According to reports, others in this Series B funding round include seed and pre-seed-focused venture capital fund Incubate Fund, Akatsuki AET Fund, NPTK Emerging Asia Fund, and Better Capital.
Indore-based ShopKirana said it will use the funding for expanding its business to over 30 Tier-II cities in India. It has also launched content in Hindi and Gujarati to target a wider audience, YourStory reported.
VCCircle has reached out to ShopKirana on the financial details of the investment and will update the story accordingly.
ShopKirana was founded in 2015 by Tanutejas Saraswat, Sumit Ghorawat and Deepak Dhanotiya. It connects individual retailers with suppliers via its B2B e-commerce platform, where they can place orders, get their products delivered and make payments. The startup works with various stakeholders in the groceries, fast-moving consumer goods and supply chain sectors.
Previously, Info Edge invested $2 million (around Rs 14 crore) in ShopKirana in December last year. Akatsuki AET Fund, the investment fund of Japan’s Akatsuki Inc., Incubate Fund and Better Capital were also among those that had put in money then.
Info Edge operates a slew of Internet properties, including real estate portal 99acres.com, matrimonial website Jeevansathi and education services portal Shiksha. Besides, it holds stakes in several technology firms such as restaurant search platform Zomato, ed-tech entity NoPaperForms, online insurance aggregator PolicyBazaar and e-learning firm Meritnation.
