Social commerce continues to be a hot sector for venture capitalists and large investors such as SoftBank. After Meesho, CityMall is all set to raise $12 million in a Series A round led by Accel Partners, according to three people aware of the details of the transaction.
“Accel has given the term sheet and contours of the deal are almost finalised,” said one of the persons cited above, requesting anonymity as the talks are private. “Existing investors Elevation Capital and Waterbridge Capital would also participate.”
This would be the second institutional round for the two-year-old firm. CityMall had raised a $3 million round last year which was exclusively reported by Entrackr.
“CityMall will be valued in the range of $35-40 million,” said another person who also wished not to be named. The deal is likely to be announced in a few weeks from now.
The fresh round in CityMall is coming at a time when several startups including SimSim, BulBul and EkAnek have been witnessing interest from venture capitalists. Social commerce’s posterboy Meesho is in advanced stages to mop up upto $250 million round led by SoftBank.
Entrackr reported about the new round last week.
Sources indicate that a couple of more investors may join CityMall’s financing. “If more investors join, the company would end up raising over $15 million,” said the first person quoted at the beginning of the story.
Entrackr queries sent to CityMall, Accel Partners and Elevation Capital didn’t elicit any response. We will update the story in case they respond.
CityMall has two Android apps: CityMall Customer and CityMall Leader. The first app is consumer-facing that lets users buy grocery across 3,000 products whereas the latter one helps re-sellers push CityMall’s products in their network.
The company is likely to use the upcoming proceeds towards strengthening its supply chain and go deeper in tier II, III and IV cities. According to Sensor Tower, CityMall Customer has over 1.3 million lifetime downloads while the resellers-focused app has close to 90,000 downloads.
Social commerce companies seem to be recording significant growth. According to sources, major companies in the space have surpassed pre-covid peak. As a result, venture capitalists are seeing the potential in the segment.
In December, DealShare raised $21 million in a Series C funding round led by WestBridge Capital. The euphoria around the model seems strong and more companies in the space would likely see large infusions in 2021.
