Venture capital’s fascination with ecommerce startups in India continues into 2012. HandsPick, a fashion apparel and accessories ecommerce brand owned by Delhi-based startup Intuitent Online Venture, has raised $2 million in what is most likely a Series A round of funding from Seedfund. The deal could not be confirmed either with Seedfund or HandsPick at the time of publishing this story, but sources familiar with the development said that it has been in the making since late December. Startupcentral had earlier reported that the Mumbai-based specialist seed stage investor was close to signing two new deals worth $5 million in the mobile value-added services and ecommerce sectors respectively.
Seedfund’s latest ecommerce bet positions itself as a destination for affordable fashion apparel. The company has a team of stylists that keeps tabs on fashion trends and ensures that the site offers products in line with those trends. It claims to retail over 60 brands online, including Lee, Puma, Spykar and Wrangler. The site offers offers members the facility of placing orders over telephone (apart from online) and trials before purchase. It also has a 30-day return policy and the mandatory cash-on-delivery payment option.
Founded in February 2011, the people behind HandsPick are a seasoned team of professionals. The team is led by Amarinder Dhaliwal, former vice president of ecommerce at Bennett, Coleman & Co-owned Times Internet. The other two co-founders are Vijay Misra, earlier director-brands at TCNS Clothing Co, and Vijesh Sharma, who was earlier product head-ecommerce at Times Internet.
The investment by Seedfund is from its $54 million Fund II, which was raised last February. It closed calendar year 2011 with 10 deals and an investment commitment of $20 million. The last deal that it had announced was a $1 million investment in Mumbai-based financial information and analytics startup Heckyl Technologies. The firm’s only ecommerce investment last year was men’s fashion site Fetise, in which it invested $5 million.
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