This Indian Startup That Helps Couples Organise Their Weddings is Luring HNIs to Invest in Them A startup from an unorganized sector like wedding planning gets investment because of the venture credibility

With respect to bringing in a touch of organization into unorganized domains of Indian society, it is now heartening to know that there are ventures that are engrossed in doing just this. The major development is that such startups have also started getting the recognition they deserve along with attracting quality funding and mentorship.

In this regard, Bengaluru-based Fullonwedding founded by Shalabh Jhalawad, Himanshu Jagwani, and Khushbu Jagwani has very recently wooed marquee investors to raise undisclosed pre-Series A funding. At this juncture, it is worth noting that Fullonwedding is involved in bridging the gaps between wedding vendors and the couples getting married.

"Fullonwedding partners with wedding venues and service providers to promote their brand presence and assists in growing their sales and customer reach using digital media. It leverages Artificial Intelligence and Image Processing to develop personalised and contextual solutions for the customers," Himanshu Jagwani and Khushbu Jagwani told Entrepreneur India.

Economics of Funding, of Fullonwedding

Very recently, Fullonwedding raised undisclosed sum of money from a group of marquee equity investors in a pre-Series A round. As per the founders, these funds would be utilised in the geographical expansion, along with growing the business verticals and strengthening partner networks.

This pre-Series A could potentially open up doors to quality investments, both into the company as well as into the wedding planning and execution sector as a whole considering the potential of simplifying a lot of otherwise hassle-filled processes.

"The strong business model and scalability that our business showcased were the key factors in leading our investors to invest in our company," states Khushbu Jagwani.

Jagwani also explains that it is the concept of introducing automation to a large, under-served wedding business market; which is a USP of Fullonwedding.

"There is no dearth of supply or demand but still there is not a single seamless platform to connect wedding couples and vendors nor there is standardisation of any wedding services," explains Jagwani.

Connecting with investors: technology-wise

As far as striking the right chords with investors, with respect to technology, is concerned; Jagwani says that the leveraging of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and image processing to develop personalised and contextual solution for customers; caught the eye of investors as Fullonwedding is attempting to take automation closer to an unorganized market that is apparently in need of sophistication with respect to marketing efforts.

"Fullonwedding also has a very high conversion rate owing to the way it leverages Artificial Intelligence and image processing to develop personalised and contextual solutions for the customers," adds Himanshu Jagwani.

"This has made Fullonwedding a preferred partner for the wedding vendors giving it a huge price advantage over available market prices and in turn enabled it to offer guaranteed lowest price and high quality to the couples," he explains.

Also, with Fullonwedding's subscription-based model, in tandem with partner vendors, people could potentially check out what is in store for their dream wedding. This aspect also played a key role in securing the latest pre-Series A funding; as per Jagwani.

"Fullonwedding partners with a curated set of wedding vendors and acts as an extended sales & marketing platform for them," he informs.

Analysing the Wedding Planning domain in India, and the road ahead

Jagwani is optimistic about the growth of startups in the wedding planning sector, if these can display quality scalability through robust business models.

"We believe that quality investments definitely would be coming in from institutional investors in order to capture this billion dollar opportunity," believes Shalabh Jhalawad.

He says that despite the wedding planning domain still being in the initial stages of investment cycles (of investors), mentors are showing huge interest.

"While talking to the investor community, we saw a lot of interest from big institutional investment funds in this industry," he states.

For the new entrants, he advises them to develop models to showcase traction, scalability, and operational profitability. This would lead to drawing in pre-series A funds from leading investors and mentors.