Hyper-local discovery app Magicpin raises $7 million

For the second time in a year, hyper local discovery startup MagicPin has raised $7 million in series B from its existing investor Lightspeed India Partners, Waterbridge Ventures. The startup uses location intelligence to deliver discovery, recommendations and rewards for local experiences.

Earlier, it raised $3 million in Series A from Lightspeed India Partners. According to an ET report, Srivatsan Rajan, Chairman of Bain and Co India, and Sahil Barua, also took part in the deal.

Magicpin was founded in August by Brij Bhushan and Anshoo Sharma, who quit their jobs at venture capital firms Nexus Venture Partners and Lightspeed Venture Partners. The company mainly aims to create a social platform to help people connect and discover shops, restaurants and other services around them.

"This content inspires other users to get to know about other places and leads to intent formation. That is a virtuous cycle," Sharma was quoted as saying to ET. The founder claims its primary differentiator is allowing people to share their experience about a place they went to with a post and a pic.

Appreciating MagicPin's recent works, Bejul Somaia, MD, Lightspeed India Partners, said, "The vast majority of commerce is, and will continue to be, transacted offline. MagicPin's metrics reflect early but exceptional success in capturing smartphone-wielding users and directing their offline spend to participating merchants."

At present, the company has over 30,000 merchants listed on its platform and has over 1,50,000 users. MagicPin, which sees 5,000 transactions a day, is aiming to triple its transactions within the next six months. It also plans to expand to four new cities, including Mumbai, Chennai, Pune and Hyderabad, by June-July.

The company claims to drive close to $1 million worth of transactions for its merchants. MagicPin targets the age group of 16-32 years and sees 40% of its users come back on the mobile app every fortnight. It claims to have over 100,000 downloads and is largely dominated by women users, according to its founder.