Mumbai : Angel investors associated with VentureNursery, India’s first angel-backed start-up accelerator, members of Mumbai Angels and a host of individual angels from India and abroad made an additional investment in Klip.in, one of India’s first Social Commerce (S-Commerce) Product companies.

Keen interest in Klip.in’s business model as well as its founding team led to an almost simultaneous investment from three different groups of investors. This makes Klip, a Season-2 graduate from VentureNursery, the first Indian social curation company in which angels have invested. Usually, angel groups and individual investors look for proof of performance before committing the next tranche of funding.

Klip is one of the first S-Commerce company in India, an idea it conceptualized in 2011. Klip solves the product discovery issues of online shopping by adding a social layer based not only on preferences of friends, but also interest and taste of users, a critical aspect of fashion and lifestyle products.

Klip takes a broader view of S-Commerce as e-Commerce enabled by people and not just restricted to sharing of product information on social networks or group buying. It helps users discover unique and interesting lifestyle products from across the web by aggregating and curating them based on the users social connections and interest graph. Klip, part of VentureNursery’s acceleration program — Season 2 — graduated in April 2013.

“For us at Klip.in, commerce aided by personalization and product discovery through user networks and interest graph is an ideal S-Commerce scenario. Klip.in’s savvy investors recognize this vision and their investment demonstrates their faith in Klip to deliver it,” said Mr. Harsh Gadia, co-founder, Klip.

Mr. Manish Madambath, co-founder, Klip adds, “We are strengthening our technology to enhance user experience based on personalization and relevance. Our value addition is in helping others find what they are looking for at a point of time and place.”

Ms. Ashpi Gupta, AVP, Mumbai Angels, one of the larger angel investment groups with close to 200 investors headquartered in India’s business capital, added, “Social Commerce is emerging as an interesting investment space for our members. The founding team of Klip.in, with their strong digital background, represents an exciting opportunity for our member angels.”

Mr Apoorv Ranjan Sharma, EVP, VentureNursery said, “We are glad to see more angel members from Mumbai Angels as well individual investors from overseas, coming on board at Klip.”

The exact quantum of investment was not disclosed.

Mr Sharma said, “S-Commerce is emerging as a fast growing area globally with the power to go viral. India’s growing internet and mobile penetration can only provide more power to it.”

The seed round angels include Anirudh Damani, Arihant Patni, Aseem Chauhan, Chintaka Rantatunga, Jeffrey Keng Yew Lai, Manoj Gupta, Ravi Kiran, Sanjay Mehta and Shravan Shroff.

Source : Sanjiv Kataria