Exclusive: Former CTOs of PayU, Zomato bag angel funding for soon-to-launch m-commerce marketplace PayMango

Gajinder Singh and Ram Singla, former CTOs of PayU and Zomato, respectively, are out with their first independent venture, a soon-to-launch mobile commerce platform for local traders PayMango.com and have raised around Rs 1.5 crore ($234,000) angel funding from a group of unnamed internet entrepreneurs and investors.

Singh, co-founder and CEO, Paymango India Private Ltd, told Techcircle.in that the company will soon raise another $1 million (Rs 6.4 crore) in Series A round of investment from multiple investors in a month.

Singh and Singla, both from 2005 batch of IIT Delhi, have worked at Naspers-owned marketplace Tradus (now shut) and Snapdeal's payments platform KlickPay, besides having led the technology teams at PayU (payment solutions venture of Naspers) and restaurant listing and review venture Zomato.

They floated PayMango last October and have just launched the beta version of the website and opened registration for local shopkeepers. Singh and Singla position it as hyper-local platform and will soon come out with their B2C app.

"The idea is to meet demand with local supply," said Singh. "It would offer a digital platform for local store keepers. For customers it guarantees real-time localised deals, reducing waiting time," he said.

PayMango founders feels local commerce in urban India is currently worth $130 billion of which $16 billion is ready for mobile commerce disruption.

"We are not catalogue-based but campaign-based," clarifies Singh. "Our idea is to enhance the discoverability of local traders and bring them on to m-commerce marketplace," he said.

Singh said PayMango will go locality by locality, first in Gurgaon, starting with MG Road and will eventually cover the entire Delhi National Capital Region.

Post that it will enter other tier I metros.

"We will cover Gurgaon in one and a half months and the entire NCR in six months. After Gurgaon, we will simultaneously cover multiple cities," he said.