At a time , when funding in E-commerce is not easy , LimeRoad.com has received $15M series B funding led by Tiger Global , one of the biggest funding player in the Indian E-commerce Industry. In addition , existing investors , Matrix Partners and Light Speed Venture Partners have also participated in this round of funding.
LimeRoad.com is owned by Gurgaon-based A.M. Marketplaces Pvt Ltd and provides lifestyle products across categories like apparel, accessories, home and non-perishable food. The website allows shoppers to buy according to city, brand or flagship store. | ||||
| Snapshot of Lime Road website
LimeRoad.com is currently counts Women and Mobile as two key drivers for growth. In a market where companies like Myntra.com and Snapdeal.com have focussed on driving sales through Brands and deep discounts , LimeRoad.com differentiates itself with concepts such as Scrapbook and Magazines , where users can create the overall look with products offered at Lime Road and can post it for other users to see ( snapshot below). The community of scrapbookers in Lime Road.com drives engagement in the customer base which leads to more purchases .
Some of the excerpts from the Company Press Release -
“We are revolutionising the way lifestyle products are discovered and ultimately bought online in India, and are delighted to work with investor partners who share our hunger for winning and are supporters of our disruptive model to get there,” said Suchi Mukherjee, co-founder and CEO, LimeRoad. “Our mobile traffic, most of which is organic, is growing at 45 per cent month on month. We architected the Android mobile App to be simple, addictive, with style updates every 30 seconds, and have made it the lightest app in its segment to address the hardware constraints of Indian users,” added Prashant Malik, CTO, LimeRoad. Commenting on the funding, Avnish Bajaj, managing director, Matrix India, said “LimeRoad focuses on winning the two biggest drivers of future online commerce marketplaces—women and mobile. The community of scrap bookers on LimeRoad is zealously passionate about the platform and reminds one of similar communities in scaled marketplaces like eBay.” Bejul Somaia, managing director, Lightspeed Advisory Services India, said, “The LimeRoad team has already disproved many accepted notions in the world of Indian online commerce—for example, that it is not possible to grow without offering heavy discounts or that Indian users aren’t savvy enough to embrace deep social activities like scrapbooking, curating collections or sharing.” Success of LimeRoad.com in raising the funding reiterates the fact that there is space for differentiated players in the Indian Ecommerce Space. Companies need to look beyond discounts to engage and retain customers . Platforms and features such as Style Council , Shop the Look , Product Videos , Style Forums ( on the line of ASOS) go a long way to acquire customers organically . It will be interesting to see what is the scale that these differentiated players can achieve in terms of Revenues and Orders considering niche focus and high repeat purchase. More on LimeRoad.com can be accessed through these links- 1- http://www.businesswireindia.com/news/news-details/correcting-replacing-indias-first-womens-social-shopping-platform-lime/33087 2- http://businesswireindia.com/news/news-details/limeroadcom-soars-with-26-mn-page-views-per-month-emerge-as-top-engage/36479 Cheers AlwaysPositive 7th May 2014 |
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