Start-up Street: Indian Angel Network member invests in Shopatplaces

Company plans to improve marketing to reach, to roll out app to shop on the go

Indian Angel Network (IAN), India's first and Asia's largest angel network, today announced that it has invested in Shopatplaces, an e-commerce portal for apparel and accessories. The Network did not disclose the amount invested by its member, B Hari, who has also joined Shopatplaces' board and led this round of investment.

Shopatplaces was founded in 2012 by an execution-oriented team with a background in supply chain and investment banking. One of the co-founders, Sherfur Rehman, an MBA from NITIE has previously worked with Cadburys in the supply chain & procurement team and the other co-founder, Zuhaib Khan, has worked with investment banking & private equity firms like JP Morgan, Mape Advisory and Casa Capital.

 

Shopatplaces is focused on the apparel and accessories category right now and also offers curated jewellery, bags, shoes, home decor and fragrances to its customers.

IAN in a statement said that the company will enter the personal care category and cover all 29 states of India on the product portfolio side in the next month. After that, customers will be able to get locally sourced products from different countries via Shopatplaces.

B. Hari, the lead IAN investor commented on the company's growth strategy saying, "At IAN, we were extremely excited with Zuhaib and Sherfur's passion, enthusiasm, and business acumen to build a great company. And combined with Shopatplaces' scalable online experience to well thought through customer base. Shopatplaces is poised to pioneer the online shopping experience of specialty merchandise from across the nation and then from across the globe. There was tremendous investor interest at IAN & the company raised monies in literally minutes."

Zuhaib Khan, co-founder of Shopatplaces said, "IAN's investment will enable the company to further build our Product Portfolio and Service."

 

"Moving ahead, we plan to improve marketing to reach our target customer segment and scale up the technology front-end and back-end infrastructure. We aim to be the top-of-the-mind recall for the customers when they think of locally crafted products from any city. On the technology front, an app will be rolled out for customers to shop on the go," he added.