Cashback and couponing venture Cashkaro raises $750K from UK-based angels

UK- and India-based Pouring Pounds Pvt Ltd, which runs cashback sites in the UK and recently launched an India version, has raised $750,000 (Rs 4.5 crore) from a group of 10-12 independent UK-based angel investors. The company runs Cashkaro.com in India and Pouringpounds.com in the UK. The capital raised is entirely for the Indian arm Cashkaro.com, said its co-founder.

News of the angel funding was first reported by Businessworld.

Husband and wife duo Rohan and Swati Bhargava (both London School of Economics graduates) started Pouring Pounds in the UK in February 2011 and taking a cue from its success launched the India-focused site Cashkaro.com last November. Both Rohan and Swati are UK-based professionals. Rohan was previously working at Aladdin Capital managing a $1 billion portfolio of structured credit assets. Swati was working at Goldman Sachs in London.

Cashkaro has a two-pronged business model wherein it offers coupons of various ecommerce companies as well as cashback on purchase made via Cashkaro. Cashkaro earns on a per sale commission basis wherein the brands pay the firm a percentage on every sale done via their portal. Cashkaro keeps the margin and passes on the rest to the consumer. The cashback is stored in the user's account on the portal from where he/she can redeem it.

The company plans to utilise this capital fully for Cashkaro.com to expand the team and for meeting marketing expenses. In October 2012, the company raised a seed round of $75,000 for growing the UK business.

"We have more than 350 retailers on board at Cashkaro and more than 40,000 registered users," shared Swati, co-founder, Cashkaro.com.

She also shared that as of now the conversion rate stands at 12-15 per cent. "We define conversion rate as number of people who make a transaction through Cashkaro viz number of people who sign up," stated Swati.

She said in the UK the conversion rate stands at 30-35 per cent and the firm is hoping that Cashkaro should reach this rate soon. The portal is processing around 200-250 transactions daily. Other cashback companies operating in India are Pennyful.in, GoPaisa.com and topcashback.in. Also, there are various couponing sites, including some which are backed and incubated by large firms such as Rocket Internet's Cuponation.

(Edited by Joby Puthuparampil Johnson)