Delhi-based Solvy Tech Solutions Pvt Ltd, the company behind products review portal Reviews42.com, has raised $5 million in a fresh institutional round of funding, led by Tiger Global Management LLC, with participation from existing investor Nirvana Venture Advisors, the company said in a press release. The firm has also announced that it has rebranded itself as Zopper.com.
“We are planning to scale up every aspect of our business and provide a number of new products to enhance our customers’ shopping experience. This round of funding would be used to build up our products, team and technology to seamlessly integrate offline retailers,†said Neeraj Jain, co-founder of Reviews42.
“Our potential for growth is immense. The total addressable product related retail market is around $100 billion. With increasing smartphone penetration and trends like ROPO (Research Online, Purchase Offline) and Showrooming on the rise, we are bullish on further growth,†said Surjendu Kuila, co-founder of Reviews42.
Founded in 2011, Reviews42 is a community-based product review site. It works by aggregating user reviews across a variety of categories, including computers & accessories, mobile phones, home appliances, apparels & accessories, baby products, kitchen ware and more.
Reviews42 enables users to browse and search through products by brand, categories, features and pricing. Besides offering a detailed specification page along with user reviews, expert reviews, buying tips and overall ratings, it features a price comparison engine.
Prior to this round, the company had raised an undisclosed amount in Series A from Nirvana Venture Advisors and Rahul Khanna (managing director of Canaan India who had invested in his personal capacity), as well as a few other undisclosed individual investors in April last year. Existing investor Blume Ventures also participated in this round.
Before that, it had secured an undisclosed amount in funding from Blume Ventures and VenturEast Partners in June 2012.
The company is mainly competing with MySmartPrice.com (which has pivoted from a basic price comparison site to a product discovery platform), FindYogi, PriceBaba, Buyit, PriceDekho, and Amazon’s (the world’s largest online retailer) Junglee.com, among others.
Earlier this year, price comparison site BearShop.in (launched in 2012) had shut shop.
Hedge fund cum early stage tech investment firm Tiger Global has been one of the most aggressive backers of Indian tech firms with investments in firms such as Flipkart and Myntra (acquired by Flipkart). Apart from them, Tiger Global has also backed firms like Commonfloor, Olacabs, Caratlane, Freshdesk, Babyoye, Zovi, Just Dial and MakeMyTrip in India.
(Edited by Joby Puthuparampil Johnson)