Bikayi raises $10.8 mn in Sequoia-led Series A

Bikayi, a mobile-commerce enabler, on Friday said it has secured $10.8 million in a Series A round of funding led by Sequoia Capital India.    

The fresh capital will be deployed to scale up product offerings, accelerate product development, acquisition and talent hiring, the company said.

Earlier, Bikayi had raised $2 million in seed round as part of the funding from Y Combinator and others.

Founded by Sonakshi Nathani and Ashutosh Singla, Bikayi provides digital storefronts to small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs).

The features include catalog listing, shipping facility, payments, and also insights on customer behaviour to manage their e-commerce stores via WhatsApp.    

Bikayi said its merchant base has grown at 5 times over the last eight months. The platform has seen 1800% growth in annual gross merchandise value.   

“There are merchants who have made more than a million dollars via Bikayi e-stores in a year,” Sonakshi Nathani, co-founder and CEO, Bikayi, said.  

“Rapid digitisation of SMBs and the deepening of the e-commerce ecosystem are huge trends in India and Bikayi is building a next-gen product that sits at the confluence of both these trends, integrating the entire infrastructure of commerce onto one single platform,” Shraeyansh Thakur, vice president, Sequoia Capital India, said   

The e-commerce enablement space has seen investment momentum as many offline businesses started shifted towards online channels.    

In March, PayU, Info Edge Ventures, and technology giant Google led $27.5 million (around Rs 199.6 crore) in a Series A round in Gurugram-based DotPe. 

Bikayi competes with well-funded startups like Dukaan, OkShop which is backed by Fintech startup OkCredit and MyStore, backed by Khatabook that had raised $100 million (Rs 740 crore) in its Series C.