Trell raising $4 Mn in pre-Series A round at $19 Mn valuation

Community-based platform enabling lifestyle discovery through content for next half billion population on the internet, Trell has continued raising funds at regular interval since its inception in 2016. After pre-seed round of $1.25 million from BEENEXT and WEH last year, the Bengaluru-based startup is raising around $4 million in pre-Series A round from Seqouia Capital, Fosun RZ Capital, and others.

Ruizheng Investments (Fosun RZ Capital) is a British Virgin Island-based special purpose vehicle(SPV) with links to Hong Kong.

Notably, Managing Director and Head of Fosun RZ Capital India, Tej Kapoor, also has invested in Trell along with over dozen of individual investors and existing backers – BEENEXT and WEH Ventures.

According to RoC filing with MCA, the company has approved the issuance of 100 equity shares and 29,535 pre-series A CCPS both at a subscription price of Rs 5005.61 per share to 17 investors. The rest amount to be invested by Sequoia has not been mentioned in the filing.

Following the investment, the market cap of Trell has surged to Rs 135 crore ~ $19 million.

The three year-old-startup is a mobile-first visual blogging platform where users can share their meaningful & rich content and experiences around various lifestyle interests like – travel, food, gadgets, beauty, movie & TV reviews.

Floated by Pulkit Agarwal, Prashant Sachan, Arun Lodhi, and Bimal Kartheek Rebba, Trell recently became a part of Sequoia’s second cohort of 16-week accelerator programme – Surge.

A user-generated content platform that enables people to become story-tellers for their various interests and experiences. It allows popular creators to monetise their viewership on Trell. The company has a long term plan of revenue sharing model via content commerce, where lifestyle brands can reach consumers through the content and reviews shared by KOL (Key Opinion Leaders) on Trell about various products.

During its Seed round worth $1.25 million in 2018, Trell had garnered renowned venture capitals as well as angel investors. The round was co-led by BEENEXT and WEH Ventures while Sprout Venture Partners, Rajan Anandan, Anupam Mittal and other HNIs.

Update: The post and headline has been updated after getting inputs from Trell.