Wholesalebox, a Jaipur-based e-commerce portal for wholesalers and traders in fashion and lifestyle, has today announced that it has raised $2 million in its Pre-Series A funding round from a group of investors. The round was raised from Manish Maheshwari, CEO of Network 18 Digital, and Contrarian Vriddhi Fund, among others.
With the new cash coming to the company, it is now planning to scale its technology infrastructure and to expand its operations to newer markets. The company is also looking forward to improve supplier and buyer experience on its platform.
Commenting on the funding, Somak Ghosh, who runs Contrarian Vriddhi Fund, said,
Ninety-eight percent of the Indian retail market is in the offline channel, which provides a large opportunity for Wholesalebox to bring in significant efficiencies by organizing the sector’s multi-layer supply chain.
The company was founded in 2015 by Rohit Dangayach, Chandan Agarwal, Madhur Bhaiya and Rakesh Shekhawat. It is an online platform for shopkeepers to buy apparel, fashion jewelry and home furnishing products directly at factory prices. As there is no travel expense, the company is estimating that user can save around 25-30% while adding to convenience. It caters primarily to unbranded and local brand markets.
Commenting about the business, Rohit Dangayach, co-founder and CEO of Wholesalebox, said,
We initially sold products sourced from local market of Jaipur where we have been able to win the confidence of suppliers and hence got large number of suppliers onboard. The main objective is to provide doorstep delivery to retailers along with better choice while reducing their landing cost by 25%. We strongly believe that retailers should be able to focus more on their customers to help them have a better experience.
Wholesalebox uses technology to help small and medium manufacturers scale by providing them a pan India sales channel. It gives retailers an improved procurement experience, avoiding traditional hassles of logistics, negotiation, limited choice, quality validation and credit.
The company claims to have over 350 manufacturers and about 15,000 registered retailers on the portal. Post funding, it would be able to serve more than half the retailers’ shelf-space requirement for the domains it operates in, said Rohit.
As per the company, the Fashion and Lifestyle categories together represent more than a $150 billion market opportunity, with unbranded accounting for more than 80% share, and the largest channel margins across categories.
