ForeverShop raises seed funding of $300,000

Bangalore-based Teamleaf Software Pvt Ltd, which runs a C2C based e-commerce app, ForeverShop, has raised around $300,000 (Rs 2 crore) seed funding from investors. The funds will be used to upgrade the product, expand seller base in tier II and tier III cities, and build more business relationship with logistics and payment gateway partners.

"We have invested lots of money on product development because we aim to build the best app for small/individual sellers in India. Many sellers are not familiar with smartphone usage and running own online shop, so we help them to own a shop and use it easily with ForeverShop with excellent user interface and user experience," said Shathyan Raja, president of ForeverShop.

India is the fastest growing e-commerce market in the world and recently big investments happened in the e-commerce sector. However, they focused more on B2C, which benefits only big sellers. SMEs contribute about 60 per cent to the Indian economy and around 2 million SMEs are looking to start their own online shop.

ForeverShop is designed to empower these people to benefit more with the power of the internet as the internet not only benefits big companies, but also small/individual sellers, said the company in a press release.

ForeverShop was founded by an international team in 2016. The Indian team mainly focuses on marketing, operation and customer service, while the team in Beijing focuses on product development. It is a free and powerful e-commerce platform for millions of small and individual business owners across India. It aims to empower them to own a free online shop and have a vision to change the Indian e-commerce landscape.

ForeverShop is a free app that not just aggregates sellers, but transforms them into entrepreneurs. Sellers only need a smartphone with internet to create their own online shop. It contains features like own online website, products listing, categories, payment, order & customer management, marketing tools etc. ForeverShop already had more than 1,000 sellers during its beta launch in January 2017 from metro cities.

According to a recent report, online resellers space has been projected to grow to $48-$60 billion by 2022. The number of online small/individual sellers will increase from the current 2 million to 21-23 million by 2022. Also, the market share of SMEs is expected to rise from 1.2 per cent to 5.4 per cent of the Indian retail market.