Lifestyle products discovery platform Smytten receives funding from Google’s Rajan Anandan

Smytten, an online discovery platform for lifestyle products and services, has raised an undisclosed amount as funding from Rajan Anandan, prolific angel investor, and Vice President and Managing Director of Google, South-East Asia and India. Smytten will use this round of funding for enhancing user experience, product development and expanding both user and brand base. The company says it will pay special attention to artificial intelligence and algorithmically personalise offerings on their platform. Founded by ex Unilever and Google executives, Siddhartha Nangia and Swagata Sarangi respectively – Smytten claims to be India’s first invitation-only lifestyle platform. It provides its customers a curated discovery trial and shopping experience for premium products and services. Within six months of inception, Smytten says it has over 80 domestic and international brands on its platform. The platform addresses multiple lifestyle needs across beauty, health and wellness, lifestyle, F&B with brands such as Sebastian,Truefitt & Hill, L’Occitane, Bottega di Lunga Vita,Sportif, Inoho , Haute Chef, shares the company. “The new flush of investment will help us focus further on product, content, and seamlessly integrate technology, marketing and operations to create value for both brands and consumers,” said Swagata Sarangi, co-founder of Smytten. “We have designed the Smytten interface with absolute simplicity to make it a delight for our users to interact and use. Also, a strong focus on data driven curation has helped us get extremely high engagement rates, with daily returning users beating industry standards,” Sarangi added. Siddharth Nangia, co-founder of Smytten said, “Rajan Anandan’s investment reaffirms our belief in the massive untapped potential of India’s premium online market, and Smytten’s unique business model. The end goal is to revolutionise the way Indian users consume high end products and services.” Smytten says that the online market for premium lifestyle is being disrupted due to huge e-commerce adoption by India’s working population, and discretionary consumer spending. “Less than 1% of the market is online today, and is poised to grow to 10-15% in the next 3-4 years. Direct consumer engagement is key to growth in the segment. Smytten is solving the discovery and engagement problem for both brands and consumers, creating a scalable online model for high end products and services,” says the company in an announcement. Smytten is currently available on iOS and Android platform and soon be launching their web version. Smytten had raised an investment of $200K late last year as a seed capital.