GSF Accelerator, a company that aims to identify the best Indian tech startups and help them scale and create social impact, participated in the pre-Series A funding round for social eCommerce startup Kiko Live. The round saw participation from SOSV, a global VC firm that led the round and Venture Catalysts, India’s Angel Network. The round also saw participation from Dinesh Agarwal, CEO of IndiaMART, and Amarjit Batra, MD of Spotify India and ex CEO, OLX.
Co-Founded by Shivam Varshney, an alumnus of IIT Bombay, and Alok Chawla, an MBA from NMIMS, Kiko Live is a video shopping and selling platform that enables local sellers to open an online store in under two minutes. Small retail businesses in India generate over US$ 700 billion in annual revenue, but they have few options for selling to their consumers online. Kiko Live’s solution enables these millions of local merchants to create virtual live stores and sell to customers and also provides payment and delivery solutions.
Speaking about the funding, Shivam Varshney, Co-founder and CEO, KIKO Live, commented, “We are delighted to be a part of the GSF Accelerator portfolio. The funding will be utilised to scale up technology and marketing and onboard Live sellers on the platform”.
Rajesh Sawhney, GSF Accelerator says, “Kiko Live solves the online selling problem of millions of small retailers which is nearly a US$ one trillion business in India. We believe their solution is simple and easy to adopt by sellers and being early movers in this space gives them a great advantage.”
Dinesh Agarwal, Founder, CEO, IndiaMART added, “There is no better influencer to sell products, than the shopkeeper himself. The Kiko Live app brings your entire local market into your palm, and we believe Kiko Live is the best retail solution available for shops, and we are happy to back them in their growth journey.”