What is Shop101? Shop101 Review

Shop101 is a mobile social e-commerce platform for sellers. It helps merchants acquire buyers by allowing them to create mobile stores to showcase their products online.

About Shop101

Shop101 was founded in 2015 by Abhinav Jain and Aditya Gupta, who allow merchants on their platform to sell products online through social media platforms such as WhatsApp, Facebook and Instagram. On the merchant side, Shop101 provides almost all the services they can, such as helping merchants update website and email content, and providing SMS notifications, payment gateways, finding logistics and transportation partners and other services. In addition, the company's main source of income is logistics services and payment services, and they will charge merchants a certain service fee based on the proportion of each transaction amount.

In addition, Shop101 will help small businesses promote their products to users of social media platforms, and provide online merchants with order placement, payment, and bill clearing and settlement services through its built-in order processing system. In order to better serve small and medium-sized businesses and sellers, Shop101 has also launched an online product display service, allowing consumers to quickly understand product information without even opening their own social media applications. It is worth mentioning that in order to extend the service to a wider range, Shop101 has also built a supply chain platform to help small and medium-sized buyers purchase goods directly from distributors and manufacturers.

Financing experience

In July 2018, the company raised 340 million rupees (approximately 5 million U.S. dollars) in its Series A funding round. The investor was the well-known venture capital firm Stellaris Venture Partners, and the participating investors included Vy CAPItal, TaxiForSure co-founder Raghunandan G, and Livspace co-founder Ramakant ShaRMA.

In December 2018, the company received Rs 800 million in Series B financing, led by Kalaari Capital and Unilever Ventures, a venture capital firm under Unilever. Participants included Stellaris Venture Partners, Vy Capital and Livspace co-founder Ramakant Sharma, who had previously invested in the company.

In March 2020, C-Round raised US$3.9 million, led by its holding company O(1) HolDINg, with other investors including existing investors Unilever, Kalaari Capital and Stellaris Venture.