Nexus Partners, Helion Venture invest Rs 54 crore in ShopClues.com

MUMBAI: Two private equity funds Helion Venture Partners and Nexus Partners along with Teruhide Sato, Netprice.com chief executive have invested Rs 54 crore ($10m) in online sales facilitating e commerce firm Shopclues.com to help the company expand to more cities, founding chairman Sandeep Aggarwal said.

ShopClues founded by Sandeep Agarwal, a former Wall Street analyst along with three ecommerce professionals, helps third party merchants to sell online with very low transaction cost. "The investment by these investors is a reflection of the confidence in the business model that has already demonstrated a robust growth in the past 15 months.'' The company had a total of Rs 81 crore ($15 m) with Rs 20 crore ($4m) earlier in the first round from investors including Nexus. The promoters own majority stake in the e-commerce company which is expected to clock Rs 120 crore sales by March 2013.



''We do not pay sales tax, rather we pay service tax as ShopClues is not a retailer and does not buy from manufacturers as we are the facilitator and not the retailer," said the former Wall street analyst, who started the company in 2011.

The model turned out to be highly disruptive, making ShopClues among the fastest growing e-commerce companies in India. In 15 months, the company crossed the run rate of over Rs 10 crore turnover per months.

ShopClues, with its largest catalogue of products and brands in India, is pushing merchants across the country to buy and sell online. One third of the 30 million Indian small and medium business units sell goods for a living, said the chairman. ShopClues helps these business units, brand owners, and manufacturers to participate e-commerce in India," Aggarwal said.


Source: Economic Times