 "Seedfund, K Ganesh bet on India's booming e-commerce market with Browntape")
E-commerce technology provider Browntape has received funds from early-stage venture capital fund, Seedfund Advisors, and serial entrepreneur Krishnan Ganesh. The companies, however, have declined to share the amounts invested.
Founded by Piyush Goel and Gurpreet Singh in 2012, the Goa-based company helps online merchants manage their orders and inventories for multiple online e-commerce marketplaces such as Amazon, Flipkart and eBay, in one place, without having to log in to each site separately.
Rather than sticking to the current cumbersome process of maintaining multiple records and inventory catalogues for each e-commerce site, Browntape allowsa seller to track the status of all the orders placed by customers and print bulk shipping labels, invoices and manifests on one screen through a multi-channel order fulfillment software.
“We plan to utilise the funds to hire web developers and sales executives in order to scale our technology and sales teams respectively,” Goel told _Firstbiz. “_We have a number of features slated to come in over the course of next year or so.”
The most exciting is themulti-channel catalogue management that allowsa seller to add a product to his inventory through the Browntape, and have it updated on all the sites where he or she has a presence.
“In India e-commerce now has a reach across consumer groups and across products and is growing exponentially. While a large number of well-known brands have established their infrastructure for selling online, a number of players - big and small - are still in the process and sometimes overwhelmed with the process of maintaining inventory for online marketplace,” said Paula Mariwala, executive director, Seedfund.
“Browntape, takes away that roadblock and helps a seller reach to a large market without the pain.”
She added that the investment fits with Seedfund’s philosophy of funding tech-enabled businesses in sectors with large growth potential. Mariwala will be joining the Browntape board.
The infusion affirms the attractiveness the Indian e-commerce sector has for investors. So far in 2014 there have been nine investments totalling $240 millionin e-commerce companies, according toVentureIntelligence, a research service focusedon private equity, venture capital and M&AinIndia.
K Ganesh, one of Browntape’s other backers, said, “Whenever anew sector or industry is created, it generates tremendous opportunity for entrepreneurs to come up with related business models that leverage the demand generated in the new sector…With Flipkart, Snapdeal, BigBasket and Bluestone proving that online e-commerce is the way to go across all sectors - from books , electronics , grocery to jewellery, Browntape has developed a great platform for sellers to go online with minimal investment and effort.”
Research firm Forrester has predicted that the Indian e-commerce industry will be valued at $16 billion by 2018.
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