ANS Commerce Raises $2.2 Mn Pre-Series A Round The startup will primarily use the fresh capital for product and tech hiring and scaling operations to triple the headcount aside from creating a self-serve version of its in-house tools such as Kartify and Kartapult for D2C sellers

Full-stack e-commerce enablement startup ANS Commerce on Monday announced to have raised $2.2 million in an over-subscribed pre-Series A funding round led by Gokul Rajaram (Door Dash, Coinbase, and Pinterest) and Venture Catalysts.

The round also saw the participation from 9Unicorns and other eminent business and product angel investors from India, the US, and SEA, including Kunal Shah (CRED and Freecharge), Kunal Bahl and Rohit Bansal (Snapdeal), Umang Kumar (CarDekho), Varsha Rao (Nurx and Airbnb), Manik Gupta (Microsoft), Shobhit Singhal (Gojek), Archishman R. (Gojek), and Touchstone LLP.

"ANS Commerce has always remained committed to building tech-powered solutions to enable e-commerce. We are thrilled to have such eminent business and product leaders from around the globe backing us in our journey as investors and look forward to continuing building India's number one full-stack brand e-commerce enabler. We are ready to capitalize on the emergence of domestic D2C brands and international brands entering India" said Vibhor Sahare, Amit Monga, Nakul Singh, and Sushant Puri, co-founders, ANS Commerce in a joint statement.

ANS Commerce will be utilizing the freshly infused capital primarily for hiring talent in the product and tech verticals alongside scaling the operations. Apart from this, the platform would be creating a self-serve version of in-house tools such as Kartify and Kartapult to offer to D2C sellers. ANS Commerce will further use the capital to enhance its existing architecture through various micro products and drive performance for brands across the e-commerce value chain. From a technological advancement perspective, ANS Commerce plans to invest in a myriad of products in the e-commerce value chain to enable better marketing, e-commerce analytics, operations, reconciliation, and marketplace management to establish itself as the "e-commerce OS' for brands.

"I have been extremely impressed with ANS Commerce's mission to build the best and most scalable e-commerce platform to serve brands in India and beyond. I'm excited to partner with Vibhor, Amit, Nakul, Sushant, and the entire ANS Commerce team on their journey, and strongly believe they will revolutionize the e-commerce industry," shared Gokul Rajaram, executive, DoorDash and board member, Coinbase and Pinterest.

ANS Commerce also has ambitious expansion plans for this financial year. With its warehouses currently available in 3 cities, ANS Commerce plans to launch warehousing operations in Kolkata, Pune, and 3-4 other locations in the next few quarters. ANS Commerce will also focus on empowering the rapidly growing D2C brands and wants to be the preferred e-commerce partner of international brands foraying into the Indian market.

"The pandemic has disrupted the way consumers are interacting with brands and this reflects in the growth of digital D2C brands in the last 12-18 months. However, these brands can only scale up exponentially with the help of tech solutions that companies like ANS commerce provide. We are seeing a massive potential for ANS commerce as the online retail market is expected to reach $100 billion by 2026. We also expect the next set of Unicorns emerging from this segment," added Dr. Apoorva Ranjan Sharma, co-founder, Venture Catalysts, and 9Unicorns.

Although its primary focus will be the Indian market for the next 12 months, ANS Commerce plans to expand its footprint in the Middle East, North America, and Southeast Asia soon. The platform is also looking to hire 100 senior and mid-level management resources across the tech, product, and operations verticals and grow its team to 600 individuals. Apart from this, ANS commerce aims to create e-commerce OS and drive more than 1 per cent of all e-commerce sales in India by 2026 and generate a revenue of $100 million ARR.

Indian brand e-commerce market will be a $100 billion market with brands e-commerce enabler market will be more than $10 billion by 2026. The share of e-commerce in the retail sector is barely 5 per cent and there's a lot of growth that'll happen here in the future. There are 80,000 brands currently in India and this number will also grow rapidly, the company shared.