LoveLocal, an Indian hyper-local e-commerce platform, has raised USD18 million in an oversubscribed pre-Series B investment round led by Vulcan Capital, and also including participation from Klarna Founder & CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski’s Flat Capital, Alumni Ventures Group and Commerce Ventures.
Angel investors Nami Zarringhalam, Co-founder of Truecaller, Sriram Krishnan, General Partner at Andreessen Horowitz, Anna Lambert, Director of Product Acceleration at Shopify, Sarah Jones Simmer, CEO of Found & ex-COO of Bumble, Arpan Sheth, Senior Partner at Bain & Company, and others also participated.
Existing investors Blume Ventures, AC Ventures, HenkelX Ventures, Chiratae Ventures also invested – with Candy Ventures significantly increasing their ownership in this round.
Tommy Teo, Managing Director & Head of South Asia at Vulcan Capital, says: “We couldn’t be prouder and more excited to back LoveLocal. LoveLocal’s rapid growth in the past 18 months is a testament to the team’s singular focus on empowering local retailers and a demonstration of the resilience and relevance of the neighbourhood store in the daily lives of Indian homes across the country. We look forward to partnering with Akanksha and the team in this next phase of growth.”
Launched in January 2020, LoveLocal is revolutionising how India shops by empowering local retailers and digitising the USD1.1 trillion unorganised retail market. LoveLocal has grown 40x since inception and currently serves over 35-plus cities and 1300-plus pincodes, across India. In just 18 months, LoveLocal has signed up more than 100,000 retailers and fulfilled more than 1 million orders. It continues to grow rapidly at 35%+ month on month. LoveLocal has India’s largest online catalogue of daily essential items with 55,000 products sold across 145 categories.
Akanksha Hazari, Founder & CEO of LoveLocal, says: “We have always believed in the local retailer. They win on every consumer consideration: service, quality, product selection, value, credit, free delivery and speed of delivery. Local businesses also account for more than 40 per cent of jobs in India. They are a bedrock of our communities and the economy. LoveLocal is bridging the technology gap to ensure that our local retailers not just survive but thrive in India 2.0 and beyond.”
