Online retail platform Dukaan raises $11M in funding led by 640 Oxford Ventures, others

Bangalore-based Dukaan, an online retail platform that enables small businesses to digitize their operations, today announced it has raised $11 million in a pre-Series A funding round led by 640 Oxford Ventures and existing investors, including Lightspeed Ventures, Matrix Partners India, and Snow Leopard Ventures.

The round also saw participation from Venture Catalyst, HOF Capital, Old Well Ventures, LetsVenture, 9Unicorns, Ritesh Agarwal (Oyo), and Carl Pei (Nothing). With this, the startup valuation now stands at $71 million.

With this, Dukaan's valuation now stands at $71 million.

According to the startup, the new funds will be used to expand the company's operations, hire web developers, and form crucial strong partnerships in order to expand its paying merchant base. The company's premium membership service is now subscribed well by 2,000 merchants, accounting for about 10% of the company's revenue.

Speaking on the investment, Suumit Shah, CEO, and Co-founder of Dukaan commented, “We founded Dukaan because we saw small businesses and first-time entrepreneurs struggling to digitize and make their presence online. We became obsessed with the idea of making the most affordable, easy-to-use, mobile-first commerce platform in the world.”

He further said, “this capital accelerates our ability to establish key strategic partnerships to grow our paying merchant base. We started with our monetization journey on a small merchant base last quarter, and more than 2,000 merchants have enrolled in our Dukaan premium subscription plan so far. Premium subscription is just one of the revenue streams, which contributes ~10 percent to our revenues.”

Dukaan is primarily targeting India's enormous neighborhood market. Over 100 million Indians work in kiranas, as they are known locally. In many cases, these establishments have been open for decades.

Merchants can manually upload their inventory and start selling to their clients once they've set up the store. Dukaan also allows grocery store owners to take images of their goods, which are then automatically logged in to the digital store. The company also assists these businesses in accepting digital payments.

Individuals or corporations can sign up for the startup's eponymous service for as little as 6,999 Indian rupees ($95) per year. It also offers premium programs such as Dukaan Infinity, which helps businesses undertake Facebook and Google marketing and improve their Google search rankings, and Dukaan Enterprise, which is designed for large organizations.

Suumit Shah and Subhash Choudhary founded Dukaan in June 2020 as a no-code platform that allows anyone to establish an eCommerce website in minutes and scale it throughout the internet. Each Dukaan-powered e-commerce website can be customized in terms of design and functionality. Furthermore, Dukaan merchants can link their UPI ID with Dukaan and begin receiving payments from end consumers via Credit Card, Debit Card, UPI, and Wallet.

Dukaan also aids merchants who do not have programming expertise in setting up their ecommerce stores on their smartphones. Its platform is used by over 3.5 million small and medium-sized enterprises.

Dukaan Enterprise's clients include the retail chain Big Bazaar and the German personal care brand Nivea. The company has enabled over 1.5 million transactions since its start in June 2020, and a new store is opened every two minutes.

Last year, in October, the company has raised USD 6 million in a seed round from Matrix Partners Partners and Lightspeed Partners.

The company earns money from a variety of means, that include transaction take rates, marketing cost mark-ups, and so on. It also offers Dukaan Delivery, an automated delivery service, and Dukaan Infinity, which includes marketing, design, and other business decisions counseling for brands.

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