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' She was on one of the panels of the <keyword id="3003094" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="80" keywordseo="Startup-India">Startup India</keyword> Summit. <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=Radhika+Ghai+Aggarwal">Radhika Ghai Aggarwal</a>, Co-Founder, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=ShopClues">ShopClues</a> has come a long way. She believes the company would be profitable bu 2017, and handles one of India’s biggest managed marketplaces. 
 
BI Insider India caught up with her after the <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=Startup+India">Startup India</a> event, and this is what she had to say: 
 
“Modi has done what he does best. He has acted like a disruptive startup. Most importantly, he got rid of the License Raj. What he has really done in the licensing and taxation policies is allowing Indian startups to succeed, and fail”, Aggarwal says. 
 
Anything that could have been done, or done better? 
 
“We can ease the process of foreign investors coming into India a little more easily. We can also encourage India-born VCs to invest in Indian companies”, she says. 
 
Way to go Radhika! 
 
Image credit: Kenathjayashankarmenon.wordpress.com

Radhika
Aggarwal, Co-founder, ShopClues on Startup India Policy

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Radhika Merchant and Anant Ambani are slated to get married on Friday in Mumbai.</li><li>Four Indian event planners shared what it's like to plan a big celebrity wedding.</li></ul>The wedding of the year is upon us.After rounds of opulent pre-wedding festivities, <a target="_blank" rel=" nofollow" class="editor-rtfLink" href="https://www.businessinsider.in/india/news/anant-ambani-and-radhika-merchant-to-wed-at-the-jio-world-convention-centre-in-mumbai-on-july-12/articleshow/110562426.cms">Radhika Merchant and Anant Ambani</a>, the youngest son of <a target="_blank" rel="" href="https://africa.businessinsider.com/local/markets/indian-billionaire-ambani-targets-african-telecom-market-with-new-venture/vwmsmgn">Asia's richest man</a>, are slated to get married on Friday in Mumbai.Their guests, who have so far included <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/ambani-pre-wedding-celebration-with-justin-bieber-performance-2024-7">Bollywood actors, Indian cricketers,</a> and <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/bill-gates-mark-zuckerberg-among-expected-attendees-at-indian-wedding-2024-2">international business leaders</a>, will also attend events on Saturday and a reception on Sunday.During a pre-wedding event in March, Ambani said his mom worked 18 hours a day for the four months leading up to the parties."All this is created by my mother and no one else, and my mother has gone all out for the last four months," Ambani said, per a <a target="_blank" rel=" nofollow" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mmMh8KtrGaY&amp;ab_channel=BusinessToday">video</a> of the speech uploaded in March.Planning such an event takes a village, according to four wedding planners who spoke to Business Insider about what goes into organizing a multi-day Indian celebrity wedding.<h2 id="d3a9cac7-58b4-42c9-888b-817200ed450e">The biggest cost is the venue</h2>The planners BI spoke to said a typical multi-day wedding that they plan costs between five to 10 crore Indian Rupees, or about $1.2 million.Crore is an Indian term for 10 million; 1 crore rupees is around $120,000.Whether it's a big-ticket <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/ambani-richest-family-in-asia-india-lifestyle-home-wedding-photos-2018-12">wedding like the Ambani's</a> or the wedding of an upper-middle-class family, the breakdown of major costs in an Indian wedding look about the same, one event planner told BI.About 40% to 50% of the budget goes to the venue, which includes catering and rooms for the guests, said Nishita Aggarwal, the founder of The Event Designer, a Delhi-based wedding planning company.Next, 25% to 30% of costs go toward decorations, which include elaborate backdrops, tents, and floor-to-ceiling floral arrangements.<div type="image" title="pink backdrop at Indian wedding" height="3508" width="5262" msid="111674066" hostid="261"></div>About 10% is spent on entertainment. The Ambanis have hired Rihanna, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/ambani-pre-wedding-celebration-with-justin-bieber-performance-2024-7">Justin Bieber, </a><a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/anant-ambani-katy-perry-backstreet-boys-pre-wedding-party-2024-6">Katy Perry, The Backstreet Boys</a>, and Pitbull for pre-wedding functions in recent months.Other families spend a lot on artists including singers and celebrity DJs, said Purvi Modgil, a destination wedding planner based in Mumbai."If you plan to call three or four of them in different core functions, that can also add up to a good cost," she said.The remaining 10% usually goes into wedding gifts and logistics for the family and guests."Now, when it comes to a high-net-worth wedding or a celebrity wedding, everything becomes 10 times or hundred times" of that cost, Aggarwal said. "There is no bar on the budget."Planners' cost estimates of the Ambani wedding varied widely, from tens of millions of dollars to hundreds of millions of dollars.Anant's older sister <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/ambani-richest-family-in-asia-india-lifestyle-home-wedding-photos-2018-12">Isha Ambani</a> got married in 2018 in a similarly lavish wedding, including a Beyoncé performance. While media outlets speculated about a $100 million price tag, a spokesperson for the Ambani-owned company, Reliance, said that it cost less than $15 million, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/naazneenkarmali/2018/12/11/the-big-fat-ambani-wedding-celebrates-a-match-among-indias-billionaire-elite/#7cb474465992">per a Forbes article</a> at the time.A spokesperson for the family did not respond to a request for comment about the costs for Anant Ambani's wedding.The pre-wedding events have grabbed <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/ambanis-throwing-another-pre-wedding-party-cruise-ship-2024-5">headlines</a> for months. With so many celebrities and business leaders angling for an invitation, the nuptials are also a business networking event, Aggarwal said.<h2 id="7190f45a-3ee9-4e5a-bf2a-0fef8f5de89f">Each main family member is assigned a 'shadow'</h2>Many couples don't want to host their weddings at venues where other high-profile families have already held nuptials, Aggarwal said."They want everything to be exclusive," she said. "The decor has to be something else that no one else has ever thought of. It is almost like a big movie set."For a big celebrity wedding, planners divide their staff into teams and hire hundreds of additional people leading up to and on the day of the ceremony.With chefs, waiters, light and audio teams, and decorators, about 500 people often work the event, Modgil said.The planners also assign butlers to each main family member. These staffers, called "shadows," hold their phones and gifts and ensure they stay hydrated and have everything they need."There are over 70 suppliers and vendors who we work with for each wedding," said Darshan Shroff, a Mumbai-based wedding planner. "I like to describe wedding planners in India as circus masters."<h2 id="07e84198-c3b3-4ae5-b860-565eaa82e3bd">Privacy and security are top concerns</h2>Many celebrity or influencer couples are particular about how their wedding is portrayed on the news and on social media.Planners have strict instructions that restrict posts from vendors about outfits, decor, or flowers before a set date. Most big weddings also collect the phones of their guests for privacy, and couples have teams that work with the media."You can't have too many people hanging out taking their pictures. It makes them very uncomfortable," Modgil said about celebrity guests and couples.Top security firms and even local authorities may sketch out safety plans."The minute there are some kind of celebrities, whether it's politicians or Bollywood, security becomes very important," Modgil said. "We've had separate people escorting them and even taking them back because sometimes they even get mobbed."The families and their guests are not always easy to please.Aggarwal said she has planned weddings where celebrity attendees call to confirm what type of hotel suite they will be staying in and what kind of car is coming to pick them up. Everything must match their lifestyle standard.<h2 id="f2b6f12d-16c9-4226-9b64-e59a5aa60374">Setting a blueprint for other weddings</h2>The Ambani wedding is already influencing how other Indians are envisioning and planning their own nuptials.The planners told BI that brides are asking them for the same designers that Radhika Merchant wore in her pre-wedding events, like the custom lehengas designed by Abu Jani Sandeep Khosla and Tarun Tahiliani.<div type="image" title="Radhika Merchant wore a Swarovski crystal lehenga designed by Abu Jani and Sandeep Khosla" height="691" width="1024" msid="111674067" hostid="261"></div>Planners expect the main wedding to leave an even bigger mark."Given the immense influence celebrities have, their weddings often become blueprints for future celebrations worldwide," said Bharat Jagasia, a Delhi-based wedding planner."For the Ambani wedding, I am particularly excited to see how they differentiate the main event from their pre-wedding functions," he said.The festivities are slated to kick off Friday at the Jio World Convention Centre, which is owned by the Ambani family. It can accommodate over 16,000 guests.July 12, 2024 — An earlier version of this story misstated Nishita Aggarwal's location. She is based in Delhi, not in Mumbai.

Behind the scenes of billionaire Indian weddings: Hired 'shadows,' phone bans, and a circus master to lead the chaos

<ul><li><keyword id="6357066" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="Shopclues">Shopclues</keyword> has finally been sold to Singapore-based <keyword id="8279466" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="Qoo10">Qoo10</keyword> in an all stock deal. </li><li>The <keyword id="7321558" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="unicorn-startup">unicorn startup</keyword> was sold at a valuation ranging between just $70-100 million. </li><li>This year, Shopclues had been at the centre of multiple failed attempts at mergers as it tried to survive.</li></ul>Indian unicorn e-commerce startup Shopclues has finally <a href="https://tech.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/internet/shopclues-acquired-by-singapore-based-qoo10/71839928">found</a> a buyer in Singapore-based e-commerce platform Qoo10. Shopclues which was once valued at $1.1 billion-- is sold in an all stock deal for a reported valuation ranging between $70-$100 million. Here’s a look at how it all went down for the e-commerce startup. 2011 Shopclues was founded in July 2011 by Sanjay Sethi, Sandeep Aggarwal and Radhika Aggarwal. This was two years before Amazon came to India. It raised an angel round of funding. 2012 The startup raised its series A round of funding of $4 million. During this time, Shopclues had 2500 transactions a day and according to <a href="https://www.techcircle.in/2012/09/04/excl-shopclues-raises-4m-in-series-a-round-looking-to-gross-rs-100cr-sales-by-dec-2012">reports</a>, was hoping to turn profitable by 2013. 2013 Gaining momentum, Shopclues closes its series B round for $10 million from investors Nexus Venture Partners and Helion Venture Partners. 2014 Shopclues raised $15 million as a part of its series C round of funding from its existing investors. 2015 In 2015, the startup scooped up its Series D funding for $100 million, also welcoming Tiger Global to its board of investors. “Shopclues has emerged as the leading marketplace of choice for the millions of small and local businesses seeking to reach mass consumers in India’s tier 2 and tier 3 cities,” the then Tiger Global private equity business head Lee Fixel <a href="https://www.vccircle.com/e-com-marketplace-shopclues-raises-100m-series-c-funding-led-tiger-global/">had said.</a> It also registered a GMV of $400 million. 2016 Between late 2015 and early 2016, Shopclues closed its series E round of funding to join the prestigious unicorn club. It also brought back its dreams for profitability while also reportedly hoping for an IPO. 2017 Shopclues was caught in the middle of a very public spat between its founders – husband and wife duo Sandeep Aggarwal and Radhika. Aggarwal put out a post on Facebook accusing his wife of “an illicit affair” as well as ousting him from the company. It was also the year when the company’s <a href="https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/small-biz/money/shopclues-fy-17-revenue-up-5-losses-decline-by-13/articleshow/61539773.cms">revenue began slowing dow</a>n. In FY17, the company’s revenue grew by 5% instead of the usual 50% jump it had been seeing. Its losses stood at ₹332 crores. 2018 It managed to come back in the game with a 46% revenue jump and cutting down its losses to ₹208 crore in FY18. But at this time, Shopclues also <a href="https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/small-biz/startups/newsbuzz/shopclues-revenue-up-46-to-rs-273-crore/articleshow/66409043.cms">cut down</a> on operational costs, advertising spends and employee benefits. However, it was facing immense competition from Flipkart, Amazon, Paytm etc who were growing at breakneck speed. Meanwhile, Shopclues was focussing on its wholesale marketplace model. Once again, its plans to go in for an IPO in 2018, failed to see the light of the day. Multiple senior management <a href="https://www.thehindubusinessline.com/info-tech/top-level-exits-at-shopcluescom/article23263804.ece">exits</a> too began in the company. It also fired 50 employees across verticals. It also lost a legal fight with L’oreal, which had <a href="https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/small-biz/startups/newsbuzz/loral-india-wins-judgement-on-counterfeits-against-shopclues/articleshow/66652453.cms">accused</a> Shopclues of selling counterfeit products on its platform. 2019 Having survived on bridge rounds of investments, troubles started mounting for the company as its struggle to survive became public. The rumours of its probable sell began taking solid turns. Snapdeal (who was itself making a comeback from massive losses) was reported to be in talks with Shopclues for a possible merger, but the talks didn’t go through in the end. There were also rumours about ebay.in looking to <a href="https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/small-biz/startups/newsbuzz/ebay-in-talks-with-etailers-including-shopclues-for-a-fresh-bid-in-india/articleshow/65157378.cms">acquire</a> Shopclues. Shopclues also laid off about 200 employees to cut costs. Then came the news of its final sale to Singapore-based Qoo10 in an all stock deal, but with a massive fall in valuation. “This partnership presents new strategic opportunities for both companies, as it opens up cross-border opportunities for consumers and sellers across Asia,” the company said in a statement.

Once valued at $1.1 billion Shopclues finally gets sold for less than $100 million valuation

In a bid to save the cost of logistics and ensure faster deliveries, the Gurgaon-based online marketplace <keyword id="6357066" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="ShopClues">ShopClues</keyword> has decided to make different regions in the country. It is also looking forward to expanding its seller base and make intra-zonal shipments. 
 
"We are moving towards dividing the country into different cities as opposed to regions for our shipments," said Radhika Aggarwal, chief business officer at ShopClues. "The idea of shipping from within the zone of a customer works perfectly for structured categories. The unstructured category might or might not benefit from this," she added. 
 
The Silicon Valley-founded company will work with local courier partners for its zonal deliveries, which would save up to 25% costs, thereby yielding better margins for the marketplace and prices for the customers. 
 
The same policy is being adopted by Alibaba-backed marketplace Paytm, which has been expanding its online-to-offline shipments across regions so that delivery time can be lessened. 
 
"We are currently at 4 lakh sellers on our platform and plan to increase it to 12 lakh sellers by the end of 2016. This will also improve our 
regional selections and price range of products, mainly from the tier-2 and 3 markets," said Aggarwal. 
 
Shopclues was valued at $1.1 billion in its last round of funding, and is targeting profitability by mid next year.

Shopclues goes local, segregates regions for faster deliveries and reduced costs

<keyword id="6357066" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="ShopClues">ShopClues</keyword>.com, the mass-market online retailer founded in 2011 by renowned wall-street analyst Sandeep Aggarwal, has received an undisclosed amount of funding in its Series E round. 
 
This funding has brought the retailer’s valuation at more than $1.1Billion. 
 
The round of capital infusion was led by GIC, which happens to be the largest sovereign wealth fund of Singapore. Existing investors of ShopClues.com, including major names like Tiger Global and Nexus Venture Partners, also participated in this funding round. 
 
“As a long-term investor, GIC believes in the strong growth potential of India's e-commerce industry. We are confident that ShopClues’ merchant-first mind-set and solid management team will enable the company to expand its reach, especially in the Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities, bringing its unique value proposition to even more consumers and merchants,” said Ravi Balasubramanian, GIC’s Head of Asia Equities Research. 
 
Sanjay Sethi, CEO &amp; Co-founder of ShopClues, had his two cents to share on the same. “ShopClues has consistently demonstrated that hyper-growth and strong business fundamentals are not mutually exclusive. The recent addition of GIC and the continued strong support from our existing investors is a validation of our capital efficiency with a clear path to profitability. This investment will enable us to double our focus on digitizing our merchants’ businesses so that they scale to fully leverage the opportunity online commerce provides them.” 
 
The gross merchandise volume (GMV) of online retailer has grown over four time since January 2015. They are currently shipping out over 3.5 million items on a monthly basis, thereby attracting more than 100 million visits per month. 
 
The business growth, which is accompanied by strong improvements in capital efficiency, is expected to prove profitable by H1 2017. 
“Today, we are the dominant player in low price-point &amp; unstructured categories like lifestyle, home, kitchen, electronic &amp; automotive accessories etc. Our focus on selection, value and trusted shopping for Indian middle class consumers has given us tremendous scale with a rapidly growing buyer &amp; merchant network. We are confident that our capital efficiency &amp; execution will make this our last fund raise before we become profitable with the eventual IPO in 2017,” said Radhika Aggarwal, Co-founder and Chief Business Officer of ShopClues. 
 
The capital raised in this funding round will be used to focus on building and rolling out new products so that SME merchants can be enabled to digitize their businesses. It would also be used to further establish itself as the e-commerce operating system on the cloud. 
 
Image source

ShopClues raises Series E at a valuation of $1.1 Billion

<keyword id="6357066" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="ShopClues">ShopClues</keyword>.com, India’s largest marketplace for small medium businesses (SMBs), has raised investment worth $100 million. The new round of investments was led by <keyword id="526777" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="Tiger-Global">Tiger Global</keyword>, one of the largest global institutional investors. 
 <keyword id="118292" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Sanjay-Sethi">Sanjay Sethi</keyword>, chief executive officer (CEO) and co-founder, ShopClues said, “So far we have brought 100,000 sellers and 10 million products online and the next three years will be focused on bringing 10 million sellers and 1 billion products to the online domain. We will continue to build Technologies &amp; services to enable and empower retailers to participate in the e-commerce revolution that is happening in India. ShopClues levels the playing fields for SMBs to compete with other organized retailers both in the online and offline space, said Sethi.” 
 
Lee Fixel from Tiger Global said in a statement, “ShopClues has emerged as the leading marketplace of choice for the millions of small and local businesses seeking to reach mass consumers in India’s tier two and tier three cities. Sanjay, Radhika and the team have done a great job aggregating the country’s largest online catalog of regional and local brands and we are excited to partner with ShopClues as it expands its offerings.” 
 
Elaborating about the deal, Radhika Ghai Aggarwal, co-founder, ShopClues said, “In Tiger Global, we found a strategic partner who showed confidence in our capability to operate the country’s largest marketplace for the masses – be it the millions of small merchants wanting to sell online or the vast pool of shoppers in tier 2/3 towns looking for access to the products and categories that they never had before. The fact that another ace investor has been added to our list of institutional investors is a strong endorsement of our team, strategy and business performance.” 
 
ShopClues was set up in 2011 as the country’s first fully managed marketplace. At present, ShopClues has 1.5 million transactions per month. More than 70% of its transactions come from tier two and three cities. ing about 40 million monthly visitors, it is growing by 600% year-on-year.

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