E-Commerce Platform for Sustainable Products Meolaa Raises $2 Mn in Seed Funding Led by Turbostart

Ishita Sawant, Founder of Meolaa

Meolaa, a digitally-native sustainable consumer products e-commerce platform, has announced the successful conclusion of its seed funding round, securing an impressive $2 million in investment. The funding round was led by Turbostart, an investor who showcased strong confidence in Meolaa's mission to transform the products used into a force for good.

Founded by the young dynamic 23-year-old Ishita Sawant (in picture above), Meolaa has swiftly become a differentiated voice and a unique platform amidst Indian e-commerce since their launch.. Boasting an impressive portfolio of over 1500 brands and an assortment of 125,000+ products spanning six diverse categories, Meolaa stands as the fastest-growing one-stop-shop for high-performance, planet-conscious products, curated for Gen Z.

At the heart of Meolaa's vision lies the insight that Sustainability is the only future, and what we do now matters. Meolaa adopts an experience-driven approach to e-commerce. The platform aims to redefine the way consumers interact with brands, ensuring every shopping experience is not just enjoyable but also deeply engaging.

As the consumer landscape evolves, Meolaa recognizes the shift in preferences towards purpose-driven shopping experiences. The platform is strategically positioned to meet this demand by leveraging cutting-edge technology to deliver a seamless, personalized, and purpose-driven shopping experience to its customers. For brands, Meolaa aims to be the premier listing platform, providing solutions to the scaling and brand positioning challenges they often encounter.

Ganesh Raju, Founder, Turbostart says "We are confident about our recent investment in Meolaa, a purpose-led e-commerce platform, curated for the newer generation. This marks an exciting milestone as one of Turbostart’s initial investments with many more to follow in the e-commerce space. What truly sets Meolaa apart and what makes us believe in the brand is its unwavering commitment to sustainability, aligning perfectly with the growing global demand for eco-conscious businesses. Current trends show that Generation Z prioritizes sustainable buying decisions over brand names, making a compelling case for the platform's potential. Beyond financial support, Turbostart is strategically poised to aid Meolaa's global expansion, with a specific emphasis on regions including the Middle East & Africa, the United States, and Singapore. Ishita, a young and exceptionally talented entrepreneur, has demonstrated remarkable business acumen and we are truly impressed by her vision and passion, giving us another reason to invest in Meolaa. We are excited to join her on this incredible journey."

Ishita Sawant, Founder of Meolaa, expressed her enthusiasm about this significant milestone, saying, "Meolaa’s Seed funding is a stepping stone in our journey towards a world where all choices are sustainable choices. We aim to enable customers to shop with confidence knowing everything you buy from us is good for you, your family, and the planet. We are excited to partner with Turbostart to accelerate our journey towards empowering a sustainable revolution through our marketplace of 1500+ vetted brands. We plan to deploy these funds towards building our team for our next stage of growth, establishing Meolaa as the trusted platform for sustainable consumer products, and enabling thousands of happy customers to build a healthier life.”

Earlier, the ecommerce startup bagged pre-seed funding from Dr. Ranjan Pai of Manipal Education and Medical Group, Dale Vaz, Ex- CTO of Swiggy, Sixth Sense Ventures Founder and CEO Nikhil Vora, Lighthouse Funds founder Sachin Bhartiya and StrongHer Ventures.

Meolaa's journey is just beginning, and this seed funding marks the initial step toward realizing their vision of redefining how the newer generation shops and engages with brands in India. The platform's commitment to conscious consumption, innovation, and seamless customer experiences is poised to set new standards in e-commerce.

About Meolaa

Founded by Ishita Sawant, Meolaa is a digitally native sustainable consumer products e-commerce platform, with the mission to transform the products you use into a force for good. Meolaa hosts over 1500 brands and 125,000+ products across 6 categories, offering a one-stop-shop to bridge the gap between sustainability and lifestyle. Meolaa's platform is driven by an innovative, experience-driven approach, ensuring that customers have an engaging shopping experience while enabling conscious consumption.

The company is currently in the seed stage. Their pre-seed funding round was also $165K and occurred in March 2022. This round of funding helped to kickstart Meolaa's growth and support its mission to create a community of conscious consumers and purpose-driven brands. In March 2023, Meolaa announced that Dr. Ranjan Pai’s Family Office (Manipal Group) is leading their seed round! As of March 2023, Meolaa has a 20-member team and has amassed over 3 lakh users. Since their launch in January 2023, they have seen 100% MoM growth in orders, users, and GMV, indicating that their purpose-led, curate, experience-driven platform resonates with the need of customers.

About Turbostart

Turbostart, founded in 2019, is redefining the startup ecosystem. With its unique model and hands-on approach, Turbostart operates as both a fund and accelerator, with a presence across the globe. Adopting a cohort-based model, Turbostart identifies and selects high-potential startups each year, across all regions. While many traditional accelerators and funds offer short-term engagements and one-size-fits-all mentorship, Turbostart takes a distinct approach. This collaborative approach propels startups to rapidly validate their ideas, scale their operations, and receive strategic interventions, fueling their relentless pursuit of sustainable growth.

In just four years, Turbostart has successfully closed two funds, with three more in 2023, amassing a total fund size of USD 40 million. Notably, Fund I has already seen an appreciation of over 4X in the first cohort within three years. From an initial pool of over 6,000 applications received from 30+ countries across 15+ diverse sectors, we have meticulously curated an impressive portfolio of approximately 40 startups.

 

Creaticity Launches First-of-its-kind Phygital Furniture and Decor Mall

Everyone is getting used to the new normal. This means work cannot stop, shopping cannot stop and making homes more aesthetic and functional can also not stop. To make life easier, to make shopping as "near zero contact'' as possible and to make shopping for home furnishing and decoration such as furniture and furnishings even more exciting, Creaticity, Pune launches a First-of-its-kind online platform www.creaticityonline.com arguably the first organized furniture mall to go completely online. In other words, a physical mall that is also a digital mall, exclusively for furniture, furnishings, home dcor and home styling is now available to the people of Pune to begin with.

The Digital Launch of India's 1st phygital eCommerce marketplace mall specifically in the Home & Dcor category took place recently. In the backdrop of the launch, an insightful webinar on HOMEBOUND, a new normal of living had four thought leaders and industry captains share their rich insights around adaptability and innovation in the present context. The Guests of honour and dignitaries for the evening were Aparna Piramal Raje - Columnist & Author, Dr. Ganesh Natarajan, Chairman - 5F World & Pune City Connect, Govind Shrikhande - Mentor & Ex-MD Shoppers Stop and Pratap Jadhav, Immediate Past President - Institute of Indian Interior Designers. In addition, several brand partners of Creaticity, designers and stakeholders of the industry also graced the occasion.

Creaticity which has been dedicated to all things HOME at their uniquely designed Pune mall for over a decade now is making its digital commerce foray. The eCommerce Launch was convened by Mr. Mahesh M. CEO-Creaticity. Speaking during the Launch, Mr. Mahesh. M said, "There had been a conscious effort to adopt technology and move towards omnichannel retailing since the last two years. Already, two phases of this journey were activated a couple of years back including techno-malling initiatives such as interactive touch kiosks, beacon-based solutions and a knowledge-based mobile app for engaging better with customers. The e-com initiative takes us one more step closer to our customers in offering them a seamless shopping experience, which is the fruit of integrating technology with the physical mall." He added that "Customers can now combine the best of physical benefits such as the touch/feel experience of products and seeking expert advice from the salespeople along with digital benefits of comfort, convenience, ease of buying and payments to name a few."

While we are all coming to terms with living life in the new normal, we are strongly realising that home is where our heart is and work/eat/play/live happens much more than earlier, Creaticity is leveraging the largeness of physical touch and feel with the introduction of the eCommerce facility and taking the first mover's advantage by launching this eCommerce platform which will host 4000 products, 20 product categories and 40 brands to begin with, The brands/sellers on this portal are a combination of many brands housed inside Creaticity and several reputed national and regional brands in the furniture and home dcor space.

"This eCommerce portal which is the 1st of its kind in India by a physical mall in the Home & Dcor category is the need of the hour and there are several distinctive features namely (1) customers can visually have a physical walk through in our Mall and individual stores, (2) They will have options of zooming into a particular product for checking out the finer details for visualization purposes. (3) live chat and video calls by appointment add depth to knowledge sharing and personal touch. The entire process of visiting the stores virtually, to evaluating products, finalizing the order and safe packaged delivery of the products will be taken care of in alliance with the sellers. In other words, it would be a start to end solution from easy browsing to virtually visiting physical stores, to video consultation with sales teams for advice on products to placing orders. Simultaneously, customers also have the choice of visiting Creaticity ,arguably India's first and finest home destination in a completely sanitized environment, to touch and feel products and interact personally with the retailers and make an informed choice to make their homes an abode of comfort, aesthetics and functionality," said Mr. Mahesh. M, CEO Creaticity.

Festivities and special occasions are around the corner, people will want to shop to furnish, decorate their homes and buy gifts for their loved ones. What better way than to be safe and sit in the comfort of your house with your entire family and visit our eCommerce portal and purchase everything you want right from a small table lamp, to a sofa set, or a dining set or a wardrobe. Our online experts will be there to help you through your selection and hand-hold you through the entire process. so, combine the heart of physical and the head of digital to get a complete personalised experience with Creaticity, Pune

The vowels of the new voyage for Creaticity are #adapt #empathise #innovate #own #understand and deliver a superior customer experience to truly be a first among equals.

Kolkata-based Femiza is Women-Led E-Store Exclusively for Women

Women-focused businesses started by women innovators are dazzling and changing the way of thinking about womanliness. They are becoming the sign of women empowerment and gender equality. Three women Shabnam Banu, Amirun Nisha, Sumita Sinha from Kolkata came together to make a difference in artificial jewellery and accessories segment and has launched Femiza, an online store that focuses completely on women buyers. They have launched this website in 24th July 2016 and now selling jewellery and bags in Kolkata and other near cities like Mumbai from an inventory shop. Founder Shabnam Banu shares, “We are planning to extend into a marketplace and our model will be very different from all other existing conventional marketplaces. We aim to target small sellers especially homepreneurs and traditional sellers who are deprived from conventional marketplaces due to the involved complexities in product uploading and legal formalities. On the other hand, this will give buyers a chance to buy a product from a wide variety of options all along a good value for their money.”

Making Online Roads Easy For Homepreneurs

There are many problems that homepreneurs face when they want to become online seller with any big marketplace. Shabnam says, “Big players like Flipkart, shopclues, snapdeal etc. restrict homepreneurs by mandating VAT and other legal documentation as individuals and small companies with less than 5lacs turnover do not need VAT registration and generally not aware about legal documentation. In addition, interface provided by most of the marketplaces is cumbersome and difficult to understand. Uploading products one by one or dealing with complex excel sheets are tough tasks for busy non-tech sellers. We will provide the sellers all those tools with which they are most comfortable with and mostly use for their business.” Femiza app, which is yet to be launched, can manage registration and stock easily.  In addition, it will also provide whatsapp as a medium of product uploading to the Individual Sellers/Homemakers/Wholesalers soon.

Analysis of Current Business

Shabnam confirms, “We have sold items worth Rs 20,000 even before launching our shop. We have got these orders through our facebook page and other online social platforms.” She is satisfied with the performance and the market response. She adds, “We already have an in-house PIM (Product Information Management) portal built with php and angular JS. Using this portal we can dump items in bulk and upload on our website. This portal is also very helpful in maintaining all product information.” ‘Delhivery’ and ‘Payu Biz’ are Femiza’s logistic and Payment Gateway partners respectively. In addition, it already has 20 sellers on-board who are sending their products through whatsapp everyday. It has also started the process of developing the automatic upload of product catalogs and description sent on whatspp by our sellers.

Getting Ready For Stiff Competition

According to Shabnam, the online players like Mirraw, Craftsvilla and Voyella will give stiff competition to Femiza in the future. Do they have any plan to compete with these players? She replies, “To make a difference is very important to position Femiza well in the market. A good framework, our product range and services will help us to compete with the market competition.”

Founders Credentials

The ecommerce startup has three co-founders --Shabnam Banu, Amirun Nisha and Sumita Sinha. Shabnam Banu, co-founder, Femiza has completed B.Tech from Jadavpur University. She worked with different companies and carries a wide experience in software development. On the other hand, Amirun Nisha is an M.C.A; and pro in digital marketing and SEO. The third pillar is Sumita Sinha, a Political Science (Hons) degree from Calcutta University. She is looking after the business operations and development areas.

[Top Image - Shutterstock]

Two Canadian Brothers Launches Subscription E-Commerce SaaS for Indian Businesses

Two Canadian brothers - Mathieu and Alex Desmarais moved to Bengaluru to launch RecurRex, a subscription e-commerce Saas-based startup for Indian businesses. Their first interaction with subscription e-commerce happened in early 2014, when NPM Technologies, their parent company, was hired by a group of Miami-based French entrepreneurs to develop a subscription box website. After that, later that very year, following a massive brainstorming session, RecurRex came to life.

THE IDEA

To make the most of the subscription eCommerce, online shops need a dedicated platform. "Most of them work efficiently until their list crosses the 100 subscribers mark and they are no longer able to manage things with simple tools like excel. This is where RecurRex comes in and makes a difference. It allows e-commerce websites with current or prospective subscription potential to automate recurring billing and payments. Looking at the Indian scenario, they thought it was a good market to launch a subscription business management software. One of the major reasons for the same is that India’s e-commerce market is estimated to be worth $119 billion by 2020 and is said to be the fastest growing online retail market globally

Moreover, according to Tracxn Report: Subscription Commerce of January 2016, India has the second largest amount of subscription commerce startups after the US. Though this report was not available when they decided to launch RecurRex, they made a right decision entering the Indian market. Later on, this report further reinforced their beliefs in the Indian subscription commerce potential.

How RecurRex Is Better Than Existing Solutions

Competitors of RecurRex typically focus on the payment processing and recurring billing aspects of subscription commerce only. While RecurRex does cover this very important aspect of subscription commerce, it also caters to the marketing and logistics processes by providing actionable data and tools for the subcom model.

Subscribers in India require the ability to postpone deliveries, update payment methods or delivery addresses. And while there are currently no options to automate recurring debiting on Indian credit cards or Indian bank accounts (thanks to RBI regulations), RecurRex has automated this process as much as it is legally possible with an SMS 2 Pay functionality.

MEET THE MAKERS

This Bengaluru-based startup is a joint venture by Brothers Mathieu and Alex Desmarais.

[caption id="attachment_107350" align="aligncenter" width="386"] Mathieu (back) and Alex Desmarais, Co-Founders of RecurRex[/caption]

Mathieu Desmarais : He is a web entrepreneur with a strong interest in the e-commerce world. He has the same kind of passion for new and innovative web and mobile technologies. He started doing international business at the age of 18. He has expertise in international sales, international business development, and digital marketing.

In 2012, he co-founded NPM Technologies, the web and mobile applications development center based in Bangalore, and co-founded RecurRex in 2015.

Alex Desmarais : He completed his bachelor’s degree, with a specialization in Finance from the Sherbrooke University in Canada. He then joined NPM Technologies in Bangalore in 2014 as its Finance Director. Later on, he went to co-found RecurRex with his brother, Mathieu. His passion for learning new skills has led him to undertake his CMA certification.

USPs OF RECURREX

[caption id="attachment_107351" align="aligncenter" width="700"] Alex Desmarais, Co-Founder & CFO of Recurrex with Justin Mathews, Director of Sales[/caption]

There are apparently no known players specifically assessing the needs of the Indian businesses in the recurring billing industry. RecurRex is the first cloud-based subscription management platform to have done so. My giftbox can be considered their competitor in terms of subscription marketing.

An average company in this field focuses heavily on the payment processing and recurring billing aspects of subscription commerce only. RecurRex is the only one that goes above and beyond and also caters to the marketing and logistics processes by providing actionable data.

FUNDING

They have received 70,000 USD in October 2015 as seed funding and are currently looking for Angel investment.

ACHIEVEMENTS SO FAR

They currently have 4 clients on board:

• FRENCH BOX by Café Noir (from Recurrex's soft launch in October 2015): http://frenchbox.cafenoir.co.in/


• Greenpeace (not eCommerce, recurring donations): http://recurrex.donate.greenpeace.in/#/donate


• Purple Chilli (eCommerce website not up yet): http://www.purplechilli.in/


• Vrindavan Milk (eCommerce website not up yet): http://www.vrindavanmilk.com/

Apart from this, they have been able to sign 6 more clients but they are not on the platform yet. They are planning for their SaaS to be fully automated in a week or two and are working on their CMS to complete its beta version by the end of the year. They have also partnered with payment processors and will eventually partner with delivery services as well. In this way, they can take care of the two most important aspect, as we had mentioned earlier.

PLAN OF ACTION

At the moment, their focus is on Bangalore only as it is where they are based and can see the many opportunities that are already available there. Apart from that, they are also in talks with potential clients from other cities such as Chennai, Mumbai, Pune, Hyderabad, and Gurgaon. They are currently targeting the following verticals:

• Commodities


• Food & Beverages


• “Discovery boxes” (toys, cosmetic, clothes)


• Consumer goods


• Healthcare & Pharmaceutical

Their vision is to automate recurring purchases in India. They believe it will take two years for the market to expand into its full potential in India. For the future, their plans are to eventually expand into southeast Asia. Considering this, they are now planning to:

• Get at least 200 businesses onboard in the next 24 months (40 in the next 12)


• Device new ways of deploying a subscription store (plugins for Magento, WooCommerce, Prestashop, etc.)


• Create marketing tools and analytics for subscription businesses


• Automate recurring transactions even more with IoT

WORDS OF WISDOM

There is nothing better than advice from people who are in the trenches themselves as they know what it is like out there. Here is some advice from our duo entrepreneurs.

• Surround yourself with people who are better than you who will help you challenge yourself.


•  Stay flexible. You are going to learn and evolve, and the environment you are in evolves also, so what may have been a great idea 6 months ago might not be anymore. Keep moving.


•  Follow your guts, you’ll end up regretting not doing so.

This Gurgaon-Based Startup Aims To Be India's Amazon-for-Children

India has a young population and it is heartening to see the complete ignorance of online stores towards the 'Young Children' age group. The founders have had personal experiences on non-availability of products for their 11-year-old children worked as an impetus to work on bridging this gap which exists in the online space. And this is what prompted to the idea for a startup.

Their mission is to create "A kids souk which offers and delivers children’s day to day, periodic and special requirements bringing an ecstatic, eager, naughty and mischievous GIGGLE on their faces."

THE IDEA

Based out of Gurgaon, GiggleGlory is an online startup that runs along the same lines as any other e-commerce startup, the difference being that this is specially made for 'children-only'. It encompasses everything from toys to clothes and furniture. It is like Amazon for kids. It was founded to create a niche for Children online shopping. Its main aim is to bring Sellers and Buyers to transact with each other with ease. This startup caters to all the categories when it comes to kids. They started their operations this year itself with a soft launch in January 2016. Initially, they have started with just five categories, namely -- Toys & Games, Sports Goods, Books, Stationery, Birthday Gifts.

Other categories like Kidswear, Kids care, Furniture, Furnishings, Musical instruments, Electronics will be introduced in a phased manner over a period of time.

MEET THE MAKERS

Prabhaker Nath Misra – Co-Founder & Chief Executive Officer

Prabhaker is the Co-Founder and heads the overall business for GiggleGlory.com. Leveraging his Sales experience into Key Account Management & Channel Sales, Prabhaker has been able to create a value proposition for Seller Partners/Brands to join hands with GiggleGlory.com. His stint with Bharti Airtel as Senior Manager, Marketing & Product Management and later with BlackBerry & HERE has contributed immensely to the improved GiggleGlory.com platform.
He is also in charge of Sports Goods as a Category and the Marketing initiatives for GiggleGlory.com

Priti Misra – Co-Founder & Director

Priti is a Co-Founder & Director with a multi-faceted talent and is a go-getter. Always wants to be closer to children & be part of their learning in as many ways as possible. Priti’s teaching experience has immensely contributed GiggleGlory.com in understanding children’s psychology, their requirements, likes, and dislikes.
Priti is independently responsible for Categories like Toys & Games, Books & Stationery and strategic decision making on which products to be made live on GiggleGlory.com.

How GiggleGlory Is Different

The GiggleGlory.com marketplace is vertically focused, for Children between 3 to 16 years of age. Though it has a wide array of categories but toys & games and sports goods are the core categories. The focus of all the other online kids stores in India is mainly baby products and maternity. This startup goes beyond the regular baby care and caters to the needs of kids of all ages. The big 6 players are horizontally placed largely focusing on mobiles, electronics & clothing.

The advantage of an online store is the potential and the ability to display the entire product portfolio of a brand or category. The tie-ups with typical retail distribution chains with online stores tend to only have products that are popular in the retail market and not the entire shelf populated with many more products in that category. GiggleGlory’s strategy & endeavor is to tie-up with brands directly and/or their online distributors to have complete product portfolio, enabling the customers to choose from a full range of products overcoming the availability of only regional popular products.

Seller Partners are hesitant to join the online bandwagon due to complex cataloguing process & monitoring at their end. GiggleGlory.com has taken up the end to end cataloguing process from the Seller partners to help them expand. The activities are undertaken by GiggleGlory.com on partner’s behalf include :

• Collate complete product details as required (a typical format to upload is a 50+ column
  sheet for each product)



• Uploading & making the products live



• Providing an easy interface for order & dispatch via a simple yet complete Order Management Software

FUNDING

They are a self-funded startup at this time.

TARGET MARKET

The focus of all the online Kids store in India is mainly Baby Products & maternity. This leaves little rooms for kids who are older. So with this startup the focus has been shifted and rather it has been equally distributed among the ages of 3 to 16. GiggleGlory is for the age group 3 to 16. One category that is very important and yet neglected is the sports category. So they have decided to focus on Sports Goods as a first and a focused category .

FUTURE PLAN OF ACTION

They have received recognition and have come into the eyes of people in a short span of time. The credit for this goes to their intelligent selection of Products in general and Toys & Games. One of their most popular categories is Sports Goods. This category is a niche category & they are seeing traction for the products in this category as well. Overall, encouraging feedback within a quarter of going live.

Launched In 2013 This Husband-Wife Duo's Startup Now Sells Engineering Goods To 10 Countries

Having heard stories from her husband about difficulties in procuring the right material for use in various industries, and knowing how important and at the same time troublesome this process is, she decided to change the situation. Aware of the intricacies of the industry, she firstly narrowed down on the problems of the industry and then started this venture in hopes of alleviating them.

THE IDEA

Lavanya Natarajan found that this industry was plagued by these three problems

• Sourcing genuine / authentic goods


• Accessibility of product technical information


• Ease of procurement.

After careful deliberation, she decided to launch Steelsparrow hoping to overcome these problems. Steelsparrow is an e-commerce startup supplying a variety of complex industrial products to the industry. Currently, it deals with more than 200,000+ industrial products and has secured more than 1,000 customers in just a span of 2 years. The startup focuses only on genuine and quality industrial products and ensures its customers have access to hard to find quality products in the market.

MEET THE MAKERS

The Bangalore-based startup was an initiative by husband-wife duo - Lavanya Natarajan and Venkatesh.

Lavanya Natarajan is an MCA graduate and has now been working at Steelsparrow for three years in the capacity of a Managing Director. She has done an enormous amount of research work on the e-commerce domain and is a natural leader.

Venkatesh is a Mechanical Engineer and has more than 20+ years experience in the oil and gas industry in various positions. He is a strong product engineer having exposure to a great domain of industrial products with a good commercial acumen.

USP

This industry is not that organized yet and most of the transactions are done through individuals or firms who have a monopoly and hence have the freedom to set the price. This startup is an initiative to organize this sector and ensure some order. They sell only genuine industrial goods and ensure quality goods are delivered on time. They offer the lowest prices for the goods in India and it is guaranteed. They ensure availability of goods to the industrial customers when they need it desperately. Apart from just providing material in a completely transparent method, they also provide technical support to their customers whenever they need.

FUNDING

They have a seed funding of Rs.24 Lakhs which was completely done using the founders' savings in 2013.

TARGET MARKET

Steelsparrow.com serves a wide variety of industries starting from running textile mills to large construction sites. It enables the users in any remote areas to search and order quality industrial products and they are shipped mostly within the same day. This enables customers to source their industrial needs and it is a new experience for the industry.

PLAN OF ACTION

Without any external investments, the company has grown and established itself as one of the favorite brands in the industry. They have already exported industrial goods to more than 10 countries in the world with great praise and success. They have a regular clientele of more than 1,000+ customers already. A great point for budding entrepreneurs to note is that  they have been very careful in burning  cash.  They haven't spent money on any sort of paid advertisements so far and their cost of customer acquisition is very low.

They are currently focusing on adding more products before they launch their much awaited marketing campaign. Next they will soon be upgrading their website and expanding their product line. They will also be looking for Venture capitalists to invest in their company for the planned expansion. Their target is to offer a record value to their investors in the shortest time frame.

 

Launched In 2013 This Husband-Wife Duo's Startup Now Sells Engineering Goods To 10 Countries

Having heard stories from her husband about difficulties in procuring the right material for use in various industries, and knowing how important and at the same time troublesome this process is, she decided to change the situation. Aware of the intricacies of the industry, she firstly narrowed down on the problems of the industry and then started this venture in hopes of alleviating them.

THE IDEA

Lavanya Natarajan found that this industry was plagued by these three problems

• Sourcing genuine / authentic goods


• Accessibility of product technical information


• Ease of procurement.

After careful deliberation, she decided to launch Steelsparrow hoping to overcome these problems. Steelsparrow is an e-commerce startup supplying a variety of complex industrial products to the industry. Currently, it deals with more than 200,000+ industrial products and has secured more than 1,000 customers in just a span of 2 years. The startup focuses only on genuine and quality industrial products and ensures its customers have access to hard to find quality products in the market.

MEET THE MAKERS

The Bangalore-based startup was an initiative by husband-wife duo - Lavanya Natarajan and Venkatesh.

Lavanya Natarajan is an MCA graduate and has now been working at Steelsparrow for three years in the capacity of a Managing Director. She has done an enormous amount of research work on the e-commerce domain and is a natural leader.

Venkatesh is a Mechanical Engineer and has more than 20+ years experience in the oil and gas industry in various positions. He is a strong product engineer having exposure to a great domain of industrial products with a good commercial acumen.

USP

This industry is not that organized yet and most of the transactions are done through individuals or firms who have a monopoly and hence have the freedom to set the price. This startup is an initiative to organize this sector and ensure some order. They sell only genuine industrial goods and ensure quality goods are delivered on time. They offer the lowest prices for the goods in India and it is guaranteed. They ensure availability of goods to the industrial customers when they need it desperately. Apart from just providing material in a completely transparent method, they also provide technical support to their customers whenever they need.

FUNDING

They have a seed funding of Rs.24 Lakhs which was completely done using the founders' savings in 2013.

TARGET MARKET

Steelsparrow.com serves a wide variety of industries starting from running textile mills to large construction sites. It enables the users in any remote areas to search and order quality industrial products and they are shipped mostly within the same day. This enables customers to source their industrial needs and it is a new experience for the industry.

PLAN OF ACTION

Without any external investments, the company has grown and established itself as one of the favorite brands in the industry. They have already exported industrial goods to more than 10 countries in the world with great praise and success. They have a regular clientele of more than 1,000+ customers already. A great point for budding entrepreneurs to note is that  they have been very careful in burning  cash.  They haven't spent money on any sort of paid advertisements so far and their cost of customer acquisition is very low.

They are currently focusing on adding more products before they launch their much awaited marketing campaign. Next they will soon be upgrading their website and expanding their product line. They will also be looking for Venture capitalists to invest in their company for the planned expansion. Their target is to offer a record value to their investors in the shortest time frame.