Matrix-backed Dukaan raises $11M Pre Series A Funding

18th January 2022. Bengaluru: Dukaan, the online retail platform that allows anyone to set up an online store and sell their products, today announced it has secured $11M in a Pre Series A round of funding.

The round was led by 640 Oxford Ventures, with participation from existing investors Snow Leopard Ventures, Lightspeed Partners, and Matrix Partners India. Venture Catalyst and new venture firms HOF Capital, Old Well Ventures, LetsVenture, 9Unicorns and a number of high-profile executives also participated in the funding round, including Oyo's Ritesh Agarwal, Carl Pei, Co-founder and the CEO of Nothing.

Since its launch in June 2020, Dukaan has facilitated over 1.5 million transactions and a new store is being created every 2 minutes.

"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.' Said Suumit Shah CEO and Co-founder, Dukaan.

"This new investment allows us to aggressively expand our operations, while building out our team of highly skilled designers and developers. Additionally, 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 2000 merchants have enrolled in our Dukaan premium subscription plan so far. Premium subscription is just one of the revenue streams, which contributes ~10% to our revenues,' he added.

Founded in June 2020 by Suumit Shah and Subhash Choudhary, Dukaan is a no-code platform that makes it easier for anyone to launch an ecommerce website in a few minutes and scale it on the internet. Each e-commerce website powered by Dukaan is customizable in terms of design and functionality. In addition to that, Dukaan merchants can link their UPI ID with Dukaan and start accepting payments via Credit Card, Debit Card, UPI and Wallet from the end customers.

640 Oxford Ventures commented: "Suumit and team have demonstrated a unique ability to understand what SMB's need to be successful digitally and then ship product at incredible velocity to solve those pain points. This round of funding will further enable Dukaan to build meaningful products. We are thrilled to partner with Suumit and the Dukaan team on their path to becoming a generational company.'

Akshay Bhushan, Partner, Lightspeed commented: "There is a massive white space opportunity to service the commerce needs of India's 100M+ small businesses and the Dukaan team with its strong product orientation and deep knowledge of the small business user is ideally positioned to lead the creation of new categories of commerce businesses in India.'

Rajinder Balaraman, Managing Director, Matrix India commented, "Small businesses are digitizing faster than ever in India's history and Dukaan's simple yet effective SaaS product has struck a chord with these customers and enables them to grow their business online. We wish Suumit, Subhash and the Dukaan team great success in their journey ahead.'

About Dukaan:
Dukaan® is a DIY platform that enables merchants with zero programming skills to set up their e-commerce store using smartphones. It powers over 3.5 million small and medium-sized businesses across India to start, grow, market, and manage their businesses over the internet in over forty business categories. For more information visit, www.mydukaan.io

About Matrix Partners India:
Matrix Partners India is an investment firm with approximately $1 billion under management. Founded in 2006, the firm invests in companies targeting the Indian consumer and enterprise market at the seed, early, and early growth stages. Matrix India has invested in several market-leading companies such as Ola (mobility), Dailyhunt (mobile local language platform), Razorpay (payments), Five Star Business Finance (SME lending), OfBusiness (B2B Commerce, Fintech), Ola Electric (electric vehicles), Stanza Living (tech-enabled student housing platform), OneCard (mobile-first credit card), Jupiter (consumer neobank), Country Delight (D2C dairy & fresh foods brand), DealShare (social commerce platform), Captain Fresh (seafood marketplace), GoKwik (e-commerce enablement platform), Bijnis (digital B2B marketplace), MoEngage (SaaS) and Zupee (leading skill-based gaming app) among others. Matrix India has advisory offices in Bangalore, Delhi, and Mumbai. Matrix Partners has a global network of funds investing in the US, China, and India, with approximately $5 billion under management. Further information is available at www.matrixpartners.in. To know more about our investment philosophy, check out the #MatrixMoments podcast series.