Bengaluru based social commerce focused technology platform for individual and small-sized sellers, Windo, has raised $1.5 Million in the Pre-Series A round led by Unicorn India Ventures. The round also saw participation from prominent angels like CapriGlobal, Aravind Sanka, CEO, Rapido, K Ganesh, Co-founder Portea and a few others. The company plans to use the funds to focus on product development and also expand in a few countries apart from India.
Founded in 2020 by second time entrepreneurs Rakesh Vaddadi and Silus Reddy, Windo helps solopreneurs, influencers, small and midsize businesses set up their online stores in minutes. After it raised a Seed funding round last year — which put the company in a good position — Windo aims to create a truly global SaaS app that aids businesses worldwide. To that effect, a team of developers at the company have been working on enhancing their on-app experience. One of the recently introduced features is the app’s multi-language understanding capability. The Windo Shop app can now understand more than 100 languages, enabling users to create their online store in a language of their choice.
Silus Reddy, CEO and Co-Founder, Windo, says, “The funding that we have raised is a big step towards realizing our mission to help SMB owners and solopreneurs in taking their business online and growing. We believe our unique approach to the problem will help us win in this space even amidst a seemingly crowded space. The space is large enough that multiple profitable apps can sustain and we approach the problem differently than our peers as we are keeping it affordable & flexible. We have included new features in the app which is being well received from many of our users already”
The Windo Shop app makes it easy for anyone to manage their online business by increasing orders, helping them set up a professional-looking e-commerce store and market their products with ease to their Instagram customers. Last year, the social commerce platform witnessed 150% growth in their active users, a great portion of whom are paying customers. The app, currently, stands at 200K downloads with users spanning across more than 140 countries. It boasts of 50K monthly active users. Currently, a host to more than 100K online shops, Windo is targeting an ARR of $1Million in the next 12 months.
Sparsh Kumar, Senior Investment Associate, Unicorn India Ventures, says, “The global social commerce market is booming. We’ve seen a huge wave of small and midsize D2C brands take to social media platforms to establish their businesses. About 250 million small businesses and solopreneurs across the globe use WhatsApp, Instagram, or phone calls to take orders. With the expansion there is a rapidly growing need for platforms that can support social commerce entrepreneurs since even the internet-savvy business owners find it hard to create and manage an online website. At Unicorn India, we believe that Windo’s unique mobile-first approach supports this growth in the social commerce market and has the potential to substantially improve the social commerce experience.”
According to the India Social Commerce Market Report by Research and Markets the country’s social commerce market is expected to grow 71.5% in 2022. It is predicted that the GMV of the market will reach $8,258.8 Million in 2022. By 2028, this amount is expected to increase to $1,43,583.3 Million. Globally, the social commerce market size was valued at $584.91 Billion in 2021, according to Grandview Research. It is predicted to increase with a 30.8% compound annual growth rate each year until 2030. These numbers underline Windo’s potential to enable entrepreneurs to take maximum advantage of social commerce platforms and drive more sales for their brands.
About Windo
Windo is a technology platform that helps solopreneurs, influencers, small and midsize businesses establish their online stores in mere minutes through an app-first approach. Sellers and entrepreneurs can set up a web store with no code, no design, and no complex workflows. Founded in 2020, Windo promises to be the CTO for these businesses, addressing their technology needs starting with the ability to take their business online and eventually help them digitize all the other parts of their business.
Sell via WINDO! Our app for Instagram-focused businesses lets anyone easily manage the business on the go. WINDO helps you launch your own Shopify-like E-commerce website & free online shop in 2-minutes from your Instagram account. You can choose the products from your feed, add price & stock & share the shop with your customers easily. WINDO Shop makes it easy for you to manage your online business by increasing orders, helping you to set up a professional-looking online shop, & market your products with ease to your Instagram customers.
About Unicorn India Ventures
Unicorn India Ventures is a Mumbai-based early stage fund house started in 2015 by Anil Joshi and Bhaskar Majumdar. The Fund has also launched a UK India cross border fund for funding UK startups looking to enter India. From its first Fund, UIV has invested in 18 companies like Inc42, Sequretek, Pharmarack, Genrobotics, NeuroEquilibrium, SmartCoin, Open Bank, Open app to name a few. Unicorn India has also announced Fund II, which is a Rs 300 crore fund launched in 2019 which has invested in 20 companies so far
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