ChattyBao Technologies raises $5M seed round co-led by Vertex Ventures
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ChattyBao, a shopping platform built on WhatsApp has raised over $5M as part of its seed funding round. The round is being co-led by Vertex Ventures South East Asia & India and Info Edge Ventures. The round has also seen participation from 7Square Ventures and various prominent angel investors.
Founded by Kumar Aditya, former Chief Business Officer at Paytm & Varun Gupta, former Director at B Capital Group, the company ChattyBao has a vision to transform local commerce in India. The platform connects users with local businesses (shops & services) and provides a complete shopping experience over WhatsApp. Users will be able to discover, chat, order and get home delivery from their local merchants, without the need of downloading multiple apps.
“The entrepreneurial spirit of local businesses in India has always helped them survive and fight competition from larger players. ChattyBao will significantly enhance their ability to provide an e-commerce experience to their users, helping them compete effectively with online players.” said Kumar, Co-founder at ChattyBao.
Kanika Mayar, Partner, Vertex Ventures South East Asia and India said “Small merchants and service providers are the backbone of the retail industry in India. ChattyBao can strengthen their value proposition further, and become a catalyst in enabling more customers to come online and transact with the same comfort they already experience in WhatsApp conversations. We have been very impressed by Kumar and Varun’s vision and execution experience and we are super excited in partnering with them on this journey!”
Chinmaya Sharma, Partner, Info Edge Ventures said “ChattyBao founding team's deep understanding of the consumer and merchant needs and behaviour in India will allow them to build tools that empower local shop-owners to compete on an equal footing with the online players. We are excited to partner with Kumar and Varun to enable conversational commerce over WhatsApp for merchants. Their customer-centric approach and deep understanding is apparent from the product they are rolling out. We believe the team will be able to scale the product and build a platform that will change the face of local commerce in India.”
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