Live-commerce platform Shopr.TV raises seed round

Live-commerce platform Shopr.TV has raised $1.7 million in its seed round led by BEENEXT, Y-Combinator, Locus Ventures, Shiprocket, Goodwater Capital, and more.  Several angels including Kunal Shah (CRED), Lalit Keshre (Groww), Venky Karnam (Afore Capital), amongst others have also participated.

According to Shopr.TV,  the funds will be used into its technology, product, and team.

Founded in 2021 by Akhil Suhag, Akshay Suhag, Mukul Anand, and Tushar Dhara, Live-commerce allows the instant buying of a product or service via live video streaming. It enables retailers and individual sellers to create direct, real-time communication channels with customers, and make sales.

Currently, the platform hosts over a hundred sellers which majorly deals in categories such as  fashion apparel, thrift finds, and jewellery, cosmetics and beauty products.

The concept of live commerce picked up during the 2018-19 period and a clutch of social and video-focused startups cropped up to explore the opportunity in the space. However, a majority of them couldn’t make it big and consolidated with large players including YouTube, Amazon and InMobi.

In April this year, e-commerce giant Amazon acquired GlowRoad while Shop101 was acquired by InMobi-owned Glance in June 2021. BulBul was consolidated with Good Glamm Group whereas Simsim was acquired by YouTube in July last year. Another player EkAnek is yet to receive any new funding since September 2020.