India’s Social Commerce DealShare Secures $45 Million For Expansion Plans

Jaipur-headquartered social commerce company DealShare has secured a $45 million investment from the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority. The investment is part of a recently unveiled Series E round announced by DealShare. The new investment brings the total amount raised in the Series E round to a total of $210 million and raises the company’s valuation to $1.7 billion. In total, DealShare has raised $393 million.

The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority joins a league of investors such as Tiger Global and Alpha Wave Global who are backers of the social commerce company.

Last month, DealShare announced its Series E round and raised $165 million from the round. Led by Tiger Global, the round saw the participation of Kora Investment, DF International Partners, Twenty Nine Capital Partners and Alpha Wave Global.

DealShare currently serves customers in over 100 Indian cities. The startup leverages areas that bigger brands such as Flipkart and Amazon have either overlooked or have made little inroad. This strategy, according to co-founder and chief product officer Rajat Shikhar, is “gamifying and socializing the elements of purchases”.

He added that “We provide very high engagement on the platform because we are serving customers who are not so tech-savvy and have historically not made online purchases”.

Co-founder and CEO Vineet Rao also mentioned in a statement that “We aim to democratize online shopping for Bharat users with unmatched service and experience by developing innovative products and tech solutions. This will be supported by building our teams across the country and hiring new tech talent at all levels”.

DealShare says it has been able to reduce its customer acquisition and order fulfilling costs by providing incentives to customers to bring their friends on the platform. It also partners with local brands and operates an ecosystem of in-house private labels which enable it to provide cheaper offerings to users.

It is pertinent to know that DealShare which started as a platform via WhatsApp now processes an average of 400,000 orders a day and is very close to reaching a gross revenue run rate of $1 billion. “We are likely to hit $3B of gross revenue run rate in the next 12 months,” said Sourjyendu Medda, co-founder and chief business officer, in a statement.

While speaking on the new investment in the social commerce startup, Hamad Al Dhaheri, Executive Director of the Private Equities Department at the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority said that “India’s e-commerce ecosystem is developing rapidly, and DealShare is addressing an underserved and growing segment within it. This investment aligns with our approach of backing innovative businesses with differentiated business models to execute on their growth strategies”.

The investment will be channelled into DealShare’s expansion into new territories including Kuwait, Bahrain, Oman, Qatar, Saudia Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.