Former Flipkart SVP's online shopping platform Flash raises $5.8 million in seed round

• The seed round was led by global funds like Global Founders Capital (GFC), White Venture Capital, Peer Capital and others.
  
• The company also saw participation from angel investors like CRED founder Kunal Shah, Flipkart’s ex co-founder Binny Bansal, and others.
  
• Flash will use the funding toward product development, hiring, and global expansion.

E-commerce startup Flash on Wednesday said it raised $5.8 million in a seed round led by Global Founders Capital (GFC), White Venture Capital, Soma Capital, Emphasis Ventures, Zinal Growth and Peer Capital.

It also saw participation from angel investors like Flipkart’s ex co-founder Binny Bansal; CRED founder Kunal Shah; Arpan Sheth, senior partner, Bain & co; Sujeet Kumar co-founder, Udaan; Nikhil Srivastava - PAG Venture; Lalit Keshre, CEO, Groww; and Rishi Vasudev, Co-Founder, GOAT Brand Labs, among others.

Founded by former Flipkart senior vice president Ranjith Boyanapalli, Flash is an online shopping platform that aims to enhance the customer’s shopping experience, specifically for ‘power shoppers’.

Flash aims to cater to the top 25 million power shoppers, who contribute to nearly 70% of the online shopping revenue and are estimated to further grow to 65 million by 2030, it said in a press release.

"Power shoppers are an important consumer segment and their challenges are bound to magnify with increasing e-commerce penetration in India and globally," shared Roel Janssen, partner, Global Founders Capital.

The company said that Flash will enable an end-to-end ecosystem that empowers consumers to be in control of their shopping and communication, unlock personalized experiences, and tackle the issues of cluttered promotional email content.

“Our AI/ML-led platform will be backed by best-in-class encryption to protect privacy and give control back to the consumer. We are aiming to onboard two million users in our first year,” said Boyanapalli, who is also the CEO of Flash.

The funding will be used toward product development, hiring, and global expansion, said the company.

Since the pandemic, online retail sales have continued to rise. In 2022, the Indian e-commerce industry achieved $5.7 billion of online retail sales during the first week of festive sales, i.e 22 -30 September – which is a 27% year-on-year growth (for the first week of sales), according to Redseer’s E-commerce Festive Season ‘22 report. Furthermore, as per industry estimates, post the pandemic 78% of consumers preferred shopping online via electronic commerce platforms.

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