Gurgaon-based, Roposo a fashion social network platform has managed to secure $5 million from Bertelsmann Investment in its Series-B round of funding. Earlier in the current phase of series B funding it had already raised $10 million from Tiger Global which now sums it to a total of $15 million funding in this phase.
The e-commerce field is already crowded with players like Flipkart, Myntra, Jabong, etc. Roposo positioned itself slightly differently. Founded in 2013 by three IIT Delhi alumni, Kaushal Shubhank, Mayank Bhangadia and Avinash Saxena who is the ex-CTO of Zomato, Roposo is basically a fashion focused social media platform that acts like a recommendation engine which specializes in women’s fashion discovery.
It is available on both web and mobile platforms. It keeps women informed about the latest trends from across all web-stores that are personalized and updated daily. It offers fashion choices across several categories including apparels, footwear, accessories, etc from over hundreds of web-stores covering a few thousand brands.
Since the commencement of its journey Roposo has already gained a total funding of $21 million. It raised a $5 million in series-A funding from Tiger Global in August 2015. Indian Quotient and Binny Bansal had also participated in that round. Before this round they had bagged an estimate of $1 million.
Apart from the funding Bertelsmann Investment will also offer guidance to the Roposo team on how should they plan and move ahead to new levels of growth and expansion.
The Managing Director of Bertelsmann Investments India stated, “We see tremendous promise in Roposo as a social network and business model. With an extremely strong founding team, it has managed to capture immense mindshare in India within a fairly short span since inception. With leaders such as multi-channel network StyleHaul in the US and social network Mogujie in China in the Bertelsmann family, we are excited to now work with Roposo to make it the leading fashion destination in India”
The funds raised will be used for strengthening Roposo’s technology backbone, boosting the product, expanding the team and also expanding its categories and offerings thereby enhancing the Roposo community with further innovative features.
Avinash Saxena – co-founder Roposo stated, “Bertelsmann has a proven experience in content, social and commerce. They’ve been early investors in several successful companies across the globe including emerging markets like India, China and Brazil. When we met their team, they had a unique perspective on how they could help Roposo scale. We liked their approach and are certain that their expertise will help our social network unlock many more opportunities in the days ahead.”
Roposo claims they already have over a million active users where the traffic comes from both tier I and II cities. It allows users to upload selfies which helps users in visualizing and reviewing how the product may look on them. Various celebrities, designers, bloggers and brands have active Roposo profiles where they create styling stories and help the viewers know about the latest trends regularly.
The company has currently 60 people but they are planning to increase it gradually to a 100 in the year to come. They are working towards achieving their target to increase their users to 10 million a month to generate concrete revenue. With an ambitious aim to make Roposo a default fashion search engine for fashion seekers Roposo is marching ahead and paving its path to success.
