Customer-to-customer reseller network GlowRoad has raised $2 million in a Series A funding round from Accel Partners, according to an Economic Times report.
Earlier known as LocalQueen.com, this year-old startup was founded by group of IITians and IIM grads. Dr Sonal Verma then acqui-hired the startup in July, who renamed it to GlowRoad.com.
GlowRoad currently has one lakh registered members. It operates in the customer-to-customer (C2C) segment that builds a network among women, mainly housewives so that they can sell products from their homes to neighbourhood, residential colonies and among their friends and family networks via online or offline modes.
The Bengaluru-based startup will use the funds for acquiring more resellers and developing its technology platform.
Verma told ET that GlowRoad empowers women by helping them earn from home in a secure system with zero investment, while manufacturers and suppliers get a national sales network virtually free. Of its 1,00,000 registered members, 36,000 are active women resellers.
“India has a large percentage of women who want flexibility and aspire to be self-employed. On the supply side, we lack organised efficient distribution platforms that can tap this very unique cost-effective network,“ Prashanth Praskash, partner at Accel India told ET.
GlowRoad’s investors are confident that GowRoad can grow to be a significant player in the ecommerce market, similar to Koudai in China which is backed by Alibaba rival Tencent.
“GlowRoad is the first startup to get VC funds in C2C space in India. As consumers become more internet aware even in tier-II and tier-III cities, C2C is going to become a popular way of doing business,“ said Shekhar Sahu, board advisor to GlowRoad.com.
The ecommerce market is currently dominated by large layers like Flipkart, which is backed by SoftBank, Paytm, which is backed by Alibaba and Amazon India.