With the rise of small businesses offering niche products, customers have started turning to social media for their needs. Though, the cluttered nature of these platforms often causes them to miss out on good brands. Empowering influencers, small businesses and indie brands to grow together through collaboration; network-driven platform Oyela recently raised $1.7 million (Rs. 14.4 crore) in a seed funding round led by Prime Venture Partners.
The company previously secured Rs 4.1 crore in their pre-seed funding round from multiple investors like Good Capital, Upsparks Capital, and Eximius Ventures. The company plans to use the fresh funds to develop e-commerce technology; build chatbots for selling on various platforms with public profiles like Pinterest, YouTube, and Threads. Furthermore, it plans to streamline the supply chain to help people set up and expand their own Instagram stores.
“We are thrilled to welcome Prime Venture Partners as our newest partner in this exciting journey. The new funds will allow us to further enhance our platform and help us achieve our dream of empowering 2 million social stores in the next five years,” said Rahul Gope, cofounder and CEO of Oyela.
In regards to the e-commerce tech development, the CEO further added that it will include order management, automated order collection, which involves the use of artificial intelligence (AI), and native payment gateway integration.
About Oyela
Founded in 2021 by Rahul Gope and Anjan Kumar Patel, Oyela supports emerging indie businesses, product creators, and artists to collaborate and build their audience base. Their social technology enables users to leverage their collaborators’ social reach to enhance their own discovery. Furthermore, the conversational commerce engine allows businesses to collect more orders via Instagram DMs and comments automatically.
By allowing customers to build their subscriber base and convert them into loyal customers, it solves most problems faced by Instagram sellers. Along with satisfying their customer base, it allows the brands to venture into new avenues. The brand also propels women-led businesses, as almost 60–70% of Oyela users are women entrepreneurs.
“The Gen Z population are e-commerce natives and are also open to experimenting with fashion. Currently, there are more than 200 million businesses and sellers on Instagram globally. The next 10 years of e-commerce growth will have a meaningful contribution from these Gen Z sellers,” said Amit Somani, managing partner, Prime Venture Partners, regarding the investment.
Prime Venture Partners has also invested in companies like Quizizz, MyGate, PlanetSpark, Dozee, NiYO, and Sunstone Eduversity, among others. In July 2023, it invested in the Bangalore-based GenAI startup Zuapp.