Zoom’s founder Eric Yuan invests in Arzooo’s Series A round; valuation nears $32 Mn

B2B retail tech startup Arzooo, which powers physical retail stores to compete against e-commerce marketplaces, has raised $7.5 million in its Series A funding round led by Indus Age Partners and 3Lines Ventures. 

Arzooo will utilize the fresh proceeds to scale its operations in the eastern and western regions of the country as well as strengthen its technology platform Go Store, said the company’s press release.

Arzooo has allotted 20 equity and 4,832 Series A CCPS at an issue price of Rs 99,902 per share to raise the consideration, shows regulatory filings.

Indus Age and 3Lines infused Rs 18.75 crore and Rs 11.05 crore respectively, followed by Jabbar Internet Group and Enam Investment & Services pouring in Rs 3.75 crore each. Zoom Founder Eric Yuan along with Treasure Data chairman and angel investor Bill Tai have also joined the round through their respective trusts, investing nearly Rs 2 crore each in the Mumbai-based company.

Other angel investors including OYO’s chief strategy officer Maninder Gulati, Vivek Khemani and others have collectively poured in another Rs 7.5 crores in Arzooo.

As per Fintrackr’s estimates, Arzooo has reached an estimated valuation of nearly Rs 234.5 crore or $32 million (post-money). So far, the four-year-old startup has accumulated around Rs 57 crore in total capital across three financing rounds. 

In June 2019, the platform had raised $1 million pre-Series A round led by Jabbar Internet. Prior to that, it had received Rs 1.5 crore seed funding from Omphalos Ventures India in May 2018. While the company has not filed financial results for FY20, it recorded total earnings of Rs 19.6 crore, incurring a loss of Rs 1.4 crore during the fiscal year ended in March 2019. 

Founded by ex-Flipsters Khushnud Khan and Rishi Raj, Arzooo is a real-time reverse auction-based e-commerce platform for high value branded goods such as refrigerators, air conditioners and televisions.

The Bengaluru-based startup had also launched a digital credit lending product Arzooo Credit in July, this year. The product offers credit ranging from Rs 1,00,000 to Rs 10,00,000 to its partner stores for working capital purposes. 

According to its website, Arzooo currently has over 5000 stores having more than 100 brands in 10 Indian cities. The company plans to onboard 3,00,000 physical retail stores and help them compete with e-commerce giants with its “Go Store”.

Arzooo competes with large horizontal players such as Amazon, Flipkart, Udaan, JustBuyLive, and ShopClues and vertically integrated startups such as Zefo focusing on appliances.