LimeRoad, an innovative social commerce website for women that just launched in India, has landed $5 million in Series A funding jointly led by Matrix Partners India and Lightspeed Venture Partners.
The site, which went live on October 18, is designed using a very cool magazine-style layout through which visitors can ‘flip’ pages to peruse details of a range of apparel, accessories, home and food-related items. The site taps into the viral potential of Facebook by allowing visitors to sign-in and share items via the social network, or create their own LimeRoad account.
No parties have detailed how the funds will be spent but, given that it has just launched, we expect that the fresh capital will go towards maintaining the startup’s early growth and pushing on with further product development.
Suchi Mukherjee, founder and CEO of LimeRoad, said that the investors were “the right partners” for LimeRoad and elaborated on the company’s aim to deliver a high-quality user experience via the aesthetically-pleasing layout.
“We are on a journey to build the most extensive and engaging lifestyle platform ever,” the former eBay, Skype and Gumtree exec said. “Our sole objective is to make the user experience on LimeRoad so delightful, that we become the destination for women to find gorgeous yet affordable products.”
Explaining the decision to invest in LimeRoad through the deal — which is being made via parent company A.M. Marketplaces Pvt Ltd — Matrix India’s Avnish Bajaj said that women in India are an increasingly lucrative audience for top e-commerce sites; already they account for 30 percent of the revenue, he said.
“Women in India…will play a significantly larger role as they discover new brands and fashion trends online as has been the trend worldwide where they contribute a majority of shopping online,” Bajaj concluded.
Formerly based in the US, Mukherjee was managing director of Gumtree and has spent time working for Lehman Brothers.
Image via Flickr / Lincolnian
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