In a bid to make itself a one-stop ethnic products shop, online ethnic products seller CraftVilla has announced the acquisition of PlaceofOrigin.in, an online gourmet food marketplace. As for the deal, it is a share-swap one, with PlaceOfOrigin founders Ashish Nichani and Sudarsan Metla joining the team of CraftsVilla.
Confirming the acquisition, Manoj Gupta, co-founder and CEO, Craftsvilla, said,
We believe that ethnic foods is as big a category as ethnicwear. It is estimated to be a Rs 50,000-crore market but is highly unstructured currently. Also, the shelf life for these products is a unique challenge to online shopping. PlaceofOrigin has been working in this category for last two years and has been able to bring a lot of regional varieties online and address key logistics challenges. We look forward to utilizing their experience and our reach to make this a huge category for us.
As per Nichani, the reason for the acquisition was a common vision shared by both companies. He further said that:
We want to build India’s finest platform for speciality and ethnic foods and importantly, our internal focus on driving sustainable unit economics resonated with Manoj’s viewpoints on this count. We respect the way he and his team at Craftsvilla have built a profitable e-commerce company – a rarity in itself,
CraftsVilla was founded in 2011 by Monica & Manoj Gupta as an online marketplace for unique handmade, handcrafted, organic and gift items. It had recently raised around $34 million in its Series C round of funding, in order to expand its operations to international locations, which included Malaysia and Indonesia.
The company is claiming to be currently clocking $120 million in gross merchandize value. In the coming year or so, the company is planning to go public. It is also looking to launch its own private label in order to get more margins.
