Cashback-focused ecommerce platform CashKaro, has secured nearly 10 million USD in its ‘Series B’ funding round, led by Seoul based Korea Investment Partner(KIP) and existing investors Kalaari Capital. The company said that it will use the capital to tactically scale up marketing, expand its talent pool and work on the opening of new brand building avenues.
The New Delhi based startup company was established by the London School of Economics alumni and husband-wife team of Swati and Rohan Bhargava back in 2013.
The company had previously raised 3.8 million USD through its ‘Series A’ round of funding with investments from Kalaari Capital, Mr. Ratan Tata, and angel investors based out of London.
CashKaro’s biggest achievement to date- EarnKaro was started last year, and its astronomical rise in popularity among the masses is also something CashKaro will be looking to ‘cash’ upon.
EarnKaro was introduced as a social cashback app that would enable people to earn money by sharing deals from popular e-commerce sites with their contacts. Every sale that goes through via the use of the user’s link would allow them to earn revenue, which could be withdrawn to their respective bank accounts. It is more like affiliate marketing, but peer-to-peer based.
EarnKaro has already seen over a million registered resellers on its platform and has played a pivotal role in using micro-influencers to help raise product sales in rural and small cities.
The company, with its claimed 5 million+ user base has already gotten into partnerships with over 1500 reputed e-commerce sites, with Ajio, Amazon, Flipkart, and Myntra being a few of the big names on their ranks.
Cashkaro’s business model is built around commissions driven from sales made on the partner e-commerce websites through CashKaro links. Every sale that is made via CashKaro links sees the partner website pay a certain amount of money back to the company in the form of a commission. CashKaro then further gives a large portion of that commission back to its user base in the form of cashback. The user can then redeem the cashback as gift vouchers or deposit it to their respective bank accounts.
There has been an exponential rise in the popularity of cashback websites within booming e-commerce markets worldwide, and CashKaro aims to capitalize on that very wave and gain the attention of potential users within the Indian market. However, it faces stiff competition from rival brands like CouponDunia and GoPaisa who are competing for the same spot.
Managing Director of Korea Investment Partner, Hudson Kyung-sik Ho while commenting on the funding round, has expressed his company’s delight in securing a deal with CashKaro, as it identifies the Indian market as a growing one and sees high possibilities in terms of scaleable opportunity in their partnership with the New Delhi based startup.
According to Hudson Kyung-sik Ho, both CashKaro and EarnKaro have shown exceptional growth that excites KIP in becoming a part of “India’s Affiliate story”.
