Sequoia leads $18m round for India handicraft site

Set up in 2011 by husband and wife team Manoj and Monica Gupta, Craftsvilla claims to offer over two million handmade products - including clothing, handicrafts, jewelry and art - on behalf of 12,000 sellers nationwide. The business is similar to that of US-based Etsy, which was launched in 2005 and went public this month at a $1.8 billion valuation.

Craftsvilla raised $1.5 million in earlier rounds from Nexus Venture Partners and Lightspeed Venture Partners over 2011 and 2012. The start-up is looking to use the latest round to market the site to mainstream consumers in India, hire staff, and develop technology.

According to existing investor Lightspeed, the ethnic apparel and products market in India alone is worth $30 billion. Once the platform reaches a critical mass of buyers and sellers, the margins are attractive and entry barriers are very high, the firm said.

Craftsvilla is now said to be among the top five e-commerce companies in India by gross merchandise volume (GMV). Craftvilla's GMV has grown four-fold in the past six months to around $5 million per month - and the company wants to increase this to $20 million by the end of the year.

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• Topics
• South Asia
• Consumer
• Technology
• Early-stage
• Consumer
• Technology
• TMT
• India
• Venture
• Sequoia Capital
• Lightspeed Venture Partners