Leveraging tech, AI, and community to expand the Indian online B2C market and inspire a new generation of people to become entrepreneurs and financially independent.

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The Background

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India’s e-commerce market has a penetration of only 8% with more than 400mn potential online shoppers left to be acquired. Traditional e-commerce companies suffer from large inventory holding costs, high marketing costs, and losses due to discount-based business models. Social-commerce companies have successfully dealt with these issues but still struggle with incentivizing agents to join their platforms and creating an ecosystem of sustainable growth. Rozana.in through its innovative model of peer-commerce (a step ahead from social-commerce) leverages the social network by onboarding exclusive agents and B2B distributors. Express deliveries and just-in-time inventory have helped Rozana.in to become the fastest online marketplace in the industry. It is set to make a mark in the social-commerce sector in India which is projected to touch 70 billion USD in the next 10 years (‘Future of Commerce in India’, Bain & Sequoia, 2018).

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The Deal

IEG Investment Banking Group, Germany through its venture arm IEG India 12 Apostel, makes its first investment in Rozana.in in India, a woman-led and India’s 1st peer-commerce start-up. IEG will invest USD 1.5mn in Rozana.in to help the founders scale and expand both domestically and globally. Rozana.in focuses on building exclusive partnerships with peers who wield community support (offline and online) to leverage the social network and community for expansion of the market. It partners with hyper-local B2B distributors to facilitate ‘Quick Deliveries’ and minimize inventory holding costs. Mihir Kapoor, Managing Partner of IEG 12 Apostels, says: "The Indian B2C market is ripe for disruption through a combination of tech, AI, and peer- commerce. The founders and team of Rozana.in have the tools to build a world-class company with expertise in logistics and marketplaces.

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The Perspective

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IEG backs Rozana.in due to its strong execution team in B2B logistics, high growth focus, and disruptive business model in a very fragmented market. IEG has watched Ankur and Adwait closely in their last start-up routier which grew 500% with over 100 corporate clients, building a PAN India presence over a short time and eventually a successful exit to EBIX within 2 years.  

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The founding team of Rozana.in includes Ankur Dahiya, from IIM-L, Adwait Vikram Singh from Harvard Law School, Mukesh Christopher from St. Stephen’s College, and Prithvi Pal Singh a Real Estate Entrepreneur.

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