Gurugram-based artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled bidding platform OhLocal has raised an undisclosed pre-seed round led by mentorship-driven incubator India Accelerator with participation from other high net worth individuals (HNIs) and marquee angel investors.
The online-to-offline (O2O) marketplace startup plans to utilise the funds to strengthen product development, grow the merchant base, expand rapidly in metros and non-metros, the company said in a statement.
Founded in 2020 by engineer Devashish Goyal, OhLocal is an AI- enabled smart bidding platform connecting local buyers and sellers on a real-time basis.
"With the rapid digitisation of the economy, it is imperative that hyper local businesses integrate themselves to the digital economy. OhLocal is perhaps the best placed to address this problem by mimicking the offline experience of a shopper on a digital platform keeping both, the merchant, as well as the customer satisfied," said Goyal, who is also the CEO of the firm.
OhLocal currently operates in four cities - Meerut, Ghaziabad, Noida and Gurugram, working with 100+ local sellers. It has managed to generate business of more than Rs 2 crore in four months of its operations.
Gurugram-based India Accelerator was founded in 2017 and provides mentorship, networking opportunities and access to capital, technology and other services like legal and financial aid to early-stage start-ups.
Its recent investments include Gurugram-based Hanchens, a hyper-local express and same-day logistics startup, drone delivery startup TechEagle and edtech startup Ingenium Education.
Till early this year, it had a portfolio of about 70 startups including Lawyered, Insurance Samadhaan, Galaxy Card, Prithvi and Playtoome.
In March, India Accelerator collaborated with early-stage micro venture capital firm Artha Venture Fund (AVF) for its Summer 2021 batch.