Peepul Tree, a live-commerce platform that connects India’s artisans and their craftsmanship to global consumers, has raised seed funding of $6 million in a round led by Elevar Equity.
The funds will be used to onboard content creators to market collections that showcase the heritage behind the products, and strengthen the storytelling, Peepul Tree said in a press release. The funds will also be used to digitise the artisan supply chain and build technology to bring together artisans, content creators and customers on a single platform.
Founded in 2022 by Anish Williams, Mini Menon and Priya Jayaraman, Peepul Tree works with artisanal communities and content creators by aggregating supply through a cluster-based approach, creating demand and managing the entire supply chain and logistics to global consumers.
Peepul Tree will tap into the underserved supply chain and enable the creation of a global brand presence for Indian artisans. This will be driven by the creator economy along with storytelling powered by the platform’s content arm – Live History India – which has over 5,000 stories and films on India’s heritage and arts.
It aims to support 100,000 artisans and more than 500 crafts and onboard 1,000 content creators on its platform by the end-of 2023.
Besides Elevar Equity, the company has been backed by several early-stage investors such as Ganesh Natarajan, Cyrus Guzder, Rajan Navani, Vallbabh Bhansali, Gul Tekchandani, Archna Chandra, Sid Khanna, Ashish Jagtiani and Vivek Shah.