Social commerce firm Trell raises $45 mn in series led by Mirae Asset, H&M

It is first Indian investment by H&M Group, company that owns fashion retail brand H&M, COS, and Monki

Social commerce platform Trell has raised $45 million in a Series B round of funding led by financial group Mirae Asset, H&M Group and co-led by LB Investments.

It is the first Indian investment by the H&M Group, the company that owns fashion retail brand H&M, COS, and Monki.

Along with KTB Network, previous investors Samsung Ventures, and Fosun RZ Capital participated in this round. With the closing of the Series B round, Trell’s total funding raised has reached $62 million to date.

Social commerce--the buying and selling of goods or services directly within a social media platform--is worth $1.5 to $2 billion in GMV market. It is likely to hit $60 billion to $70 billion in 2030, according to industry estimates.

As more people make purchases online due to the pandemic, the social commerce is estimated to capture 5 per cent of the Indian e-commerce market at a growth rate of 65 per cent between 2020 to 2025.

“Trell has enabled millions of Indian language internet users to discover and buy lifestyle trends and we are grateful to have a community that has shown us incredible support, which has further fueled our need to diversify content creation, commerce in India and create sustainable opportunities for wealth creation and economic growth,” said Pulkit Agrawal, co-founder and chief executive officer at Trell.

He said that in addition to expanding artificial intelligence and machine learning capabilities in regional languages, the new funding will be used in getting the best talent on board. “Data Science and engineering is one area where we will be investing significantly,” said Agrawal.

Nanna Anderson, Head of H&M CO:LAB, H&M Group’s Investment arm, said, “Social commerce is a very interesting and growing space within the retail industry in India and globally. Trell has shown impressive growth over the years and we believe that it has the potential to become a global leader in this space. We are excited to be a part of their journey, supporting the founders and the team in their vision.”

Trell will also be investing in community activities where it will encourage content creators to make a living through Trell by creating good content.

“Trell’s roadmap and vision of empowering millions of Indian’s to become micro-entrepreneurs has really resonated with us and we are glad to see the love that the platform has witnessed this past year,” said Ashish Dave, Mirae Asset-Naver Asia Growth Fund.

The social commerce platform has more than 100 million downloads and over 50 million monthly active users on its app.

It features videos in eight regional languages garnering over 20 billion monthly views. By the end of this year, the social commerce platform is looking to launch 6 more languages expanding its footprint to over 2000 cities and towns in India.

In August 2020, Trell launched its social commerce section on the app, enabling users to watch personalised product recommendations across beauty, personal care and wellness categories that they can buy from within the app.