Exclusive: Consumer rewards platform Crownit secures Series B funding

Mobile-based marketing and customer rewards management platform Crownit, which is run by Gurgaon-based GoldVIP Technology Solutions Pvt. Ltd, said it has raised a Series B round of funding from a Silicon Valley-based investor and a Mumbai-based investor, as it tries to expand its geographic reach, a person privy to the development told Techcircle.in.

Existing investors, Accel Partners and Helion Venture Partners have also participated in the funding round.

"The mew investors have infused about $4 million in this round," the person mentioned above said requesting anonymity. The overall deal size could not be immediately ascertained.

Separate email queries sent to Crownit, Accel Partners and Helion Venture Partners didn't immediately elicit any response.

The company plans to use the funds to expand to four more cities—Pune, Hyderabad, Kolkata and Chennai. A part of the money will also go towards marketing and brand building.

Founded in March 2014 by Delhi College of Engineering alumnus Sameer Grover, Crownit offers cash-back offers at restaurants and retail shops in addition to providing technology to local businesses to run marketing programmes. Users can avail themselves of cash-back offers by shopping online, booking movie tickets and paying bills, among other things.

With presence in Delhi NCR, Mumbai and Bangalore and over 10,000 local merchants, including restaurants, salons, weekend getaways, fitness studios, retailers, among others, the firm claims to have a base of over 8,00,000 users.

Earlier this year, it had launched an app to streamline the process of viewing, approving or rejecting bills by merchants.

Last year, it had raised $5.5 million (Rs 34 crore) in a Series A round of funding from Accel Partners and Helion Venture Partners.

Players in the deals and discounts space have elicited a lot of investor interest in the recent past.

In February, CupoNation, a deals and discounts portal, had raised $11 million (around Rs 75.5 crore) in a Series B round of funding from a group of investors, including existing investor Rocket Internet AG.

In January, cash-back and coupons site CashKaro had raised an undisclosed amount in funding from chairman emeritus of Tata Sons Ratan Tata.

Mumbai-based Logicserve Technologies Pvt. Ltd, which owns and operates coupon provider Couponraja.in and price comparison site CompareRaja.in, raised $500,000 (Rs 3 crore) from Mahesh Pratapneni, Pallab Chatterjee and a bunch of unnamed investors in June last year.

Other players in this segment include Times Internet-owned CouponDunia, LafaLafa and MyDala.

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