[Funding alert] Rural commerce platform Rozana raises $2.5 mn

Peer-to-peer (P2P) rural commerce startup, Rozana has raised $2.5 million in its Pre-Series A funding round from 3one4 Capital and Europe’s IEG – Investment Banking Group.

The round also saw participation from Manisha Girotra, CEO, Moelis and Board Member, Prosus (formerly Nasper), and SK Jain, Co-Founder, Sequoia &Westbridge Capital.

The startup plans to use this fund to improve the technical capabilities of the platform and increase its presence in Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, and Karnataka over the next 12 months. Rozana says it brings rural India within the ambit of e-commerce.

Delhi-based Rozana was founded in 2021 by Adwait Vikram Singh, Ankur Dahiya, Mukesh Christopher, and Prithvi Pal Singh, It focuses on peer commerce by looking at building exclusive partnerships with peers that gain community support.

“Rozana is a revolution brewing for over a billion Indians. Our day and night effort is to focus on empowering hundreds of millions of consumers through tech and a network of tech entrepreneurs”, said, Ankur Dahiya, Co-founder & CEO at Rozana.

Rural and semi-urban areas are regions that are largely untapped by e-commerce and vintage brands alike.

The startup adopted a village-by-village strategy to drive product innovation and optimize demand and supply for D2C brands.

It provides a full-stack technology solution to enable micro-entrepreneurs to offer a wide range of products to their end consumers. These entrepreneurs can use the platform to add new customers and make their latest deals and also help them place orders online.

“We are excited to partner with Rozana in their journey to revolutionize consumption beyond tier 1 in India. The team’s approach will serve as a feeder for discovery of consumer needs mapped at an unmatched scale and demographic depth. Rozana’s razor sharp focus to empower micro-entrepreneurs is truly admirable and we believe that the team has the potential to unlock new household spends in an incredibly efficient manner”, said, Nitya Agarwal, VP at 3one4 Capital.

The startup says that it has managed to penetrate over four lakh households in nine months alone, and is looking at the steady growth in the future.

The startup has offices in many places like Lucknow, Kanpur, Bangalore, Faridabad, Gurgaon, Noida, New Delhi, Rae Bareli, Barabanki, Greater Noida, and Ghaziabad.