Social commerce platform Citymall raised $ 75 million in Series C funding round led by Norwest Venture Partners and plans to take the concept of community group buying to more small towns across the count.

The round values Citymall at around $350 million as per reports.

“The funding will be used to expand across categories and geographies, and strengthen its back-end technology,” says Angad Kikla, co-founder and CEO, Citymall.

“We plan to expand to 100 cities in next 18 months we plan to enter newer states within India and will expand into fashion and general merchandise, too.” adds Kikla.

“Citymall expects gross merchandise value (GMV) on its platform to grow to one billion over the next 12 months. The company’s GMV has been growing strongly at 30 percent month on month and we are seeing greater traction from our tier III and II markets,” Kikla says.

Investors who took part in the latest round include General Catalyst, Citius, Jungle Ventures (which has doubled down its investment in the company), Arena Ventures, Elevation, Accel and Waterbridge. Total funds raised by the company so far stands at $110 million.

Niren Shah, managing director and India head, Norwest Venture Partners says, “we have been impressed by the strong product-market fit and hypergrowth that Citymall has demonstrated over the last few months.”

Founded in 2019 by Kikla and Naisheel Verdhan, Citymall pioneered the community group buying model – or community commerce – in India. It targets the 500 million new-to-Internet users in tier II, III and IV towns where traditional ecommerce has failed to penetrate since direct-to-customer supply chains are not viable for low ticket size users living in remote towns and cities.

lex Tran, MD, General Catalyst says, “Citymall is innovating at the intersection of two megatrends we've seen first-hand globally – an upgrade in consumption towards more assortment and better quality in many emerging markets, and the leapfrogging of commerce from brick-and-mortar to online, enabled by increasing connectivity. The next frontier for this is serving customers in Tier 2 to Tier 5 towns, where Citymall has proven strong product-market fit and growth.”