Orios, RPSG Ventures lead seed round in social commerce platform ShopG

ShopG, a social commerce platform that focuses on micro-entrepreneur community leaders, has raised $1.5 million (around Rs 11 crore) in a seed round of funding.

The capital infusion in Bengaluru-based ShopG has been led by Orios Venture Partners and RPSG Ventures, the startup said in a statement.

Other participants in this round include angel investors Blackbuck CEO Rajesh Yabaji, former Taxiforsure CEO Raghunandan G, and former Flipkart and Alibaba executive Prasanth Nair.

ShopG was set up in 2019 by Ankur Arora, Abhishek Mishra, Pranay Suwalka, and Yogesh Nehra, who have worked with firms including Cleartax, Ola, Rivigo, and Delhivery. 

The platform, operated by Reybhav Technologies Pvt Ltd, says it utilises a customer analytics engine that defines actionable steps community leaders can take to grow their business. 

It also conducts end-to-end lifecycle management for micro-entrepreneurs, including onboarding, managing orders, delivery, and earnings.

ShopG will use the capital raised in this seed round for expanding its community leader network in Tier-III and Tier-IV cities, enhancing technological infrastructure, building out a supply of small regional brands, and creating a suite of direct-to-consumer branded products.

Deals in social commerce 

ShopG is the latest startup operating in the social commerce space to raise funding. The popularity of this sector among companies and investors has grown rapidly in the past couple of years.

“Social commerce as a model is here to stay and will continue to grow in coming years, especially in regions like India and Southeast Asia, where there are a lot of connections at the local and zip-code level,” Venture Highway’s Samir Sood had told VCCircle in an interview last year.

In November, GlowRoad raised $7 million (around Rs 52 crore) in funding from a clutch of existing investors including Accel, Vertex Ventures, and the IND Fund. 

In September, coupons and cashback platform CashKaro said it had raised $10 million (around Rs 73.4 crore) in a Series B round led by KIP, with participation from Kalaari Capital. The company said it would use the funds to expand EarnKaro, its social commerce arm.

In August, video and commerce platform Trell raised $11.4 million (Rs 85 crore) in a Series A funding round led by KTB Network, a South Korea-based financial services group.