E-commerce, the sector that was one of the first to see rise of startups, unicorns, fundraising and the likes, has kind of plateaued over the past few years. The sector now has established big players, who are going along nicely, while new entreprenuers have refrained from entering a sector that seems by and large, settled. Well, Flash, a new ecommerce app founded by former Flipkart VP Ranjith Boyanapalli thinks it can rattle that game a bit, and has hence landed a large $5.8Mn seed round, even before commercial launch.
The round was led by Global Founders Capital (GFC), White Venture Capital, Soma Capital, Emphasis Ventures, Zinal Growth and Peer Capital.
The round also included the participation of several angel investors, such as Flipkart co-founder Binny Bansal, CRED founder Kunal Shah, Bain & Co Senior Partner Arpan Sheth, and Udaan co-founder Sujeet Kumar. Other angels such as PAG Venture’s Nikhil Srivastava, Groww CEO Lalit Keshre and GOAT Brand Labs co-founder Rishi Vasudev took part in the seed round as well.
Flash, which calls itself “an ecommerce app for power shoppers”, aims to onboard two million users in its first year, while going on to cater to the top 25 million “power shoppers”, who contribute to nearly 70% of the online shopping revenue. The startup also intends to enable an end-to-end ecosystem to empower consumers to be in control of their shopping and communication, while tackling common issues faced by customers during online shopping.
This will further unlock personalized experiences, at a time when a pandemic-induced boom caused online retail sales to rise to great heights – a report by Redseer revealed that Flipkart remains the dominant name in e-retail sales for the year, while the country’s e-commerce platform achieved $5.7 billion of online retail sales during the first festive week itself.
“With Flash, we aim to craft a digital shopping identity for power shoppers which will enable delightful shopping experiences. The unique digital shopping identity will allow online shoppers to access personalized experiences, rewards, and clutter-free communications,” said Ranjith Boyanapalli, founder and CEO, Flash.
“With an elite guild of VC Funds and angel investors on board, who have put their trust in us and supported us with their experience, we hope that Flash can undoubtedly change the way we shop,” he added.
The startup is looking to deploy the proceeds from the latest bout of funding towards driving investments in developing its products, bringing in new faces via recruitments, and clocking an international expansion. This comes at a time when companies are shedding employees (often by the thousands) in a bid to remain profitable and survive the economic downturn.
“We are excited to back a founder like Ranjith who has extensive experience building great consumer products. We are impressed with the Flash team and product, and are confident that they will make a significant impact over the coming years,” said Roel Janssen, partner, Global Founders Capital.
“Our AI/ML-led platform will be backed by best-in-class encryption to protect privacy and give control back to the consumer. We are aiming to onboard two million users in our first year,” said Boyanapalli.
