Gurugram based online-to-offline (O2o) commerce and fintech startup Dot has raised $8 million in series seed round funding from Prous and Fosun RZ Capital.
The seed round funding also saw the participation of Info Edge Ventures and some other angel investors.
Founded by PayU’s ex co-founder Shailaz Nag, with two of PayU’s ex-employees Gyanesh Sharma and Anurag Gupta. Dot is online-to-offline commerce and fintech startup that provides novel digital transformation and commerce solutions to brick and mortar outlets that serve over 1.3 billion Indian customers with market size of $1 trillion.
Speaking on the investment, Anirban Mukherjee, CEO, PayU India, said: “Shailaz has played a vital role in PayU India’s growth and we wish him the best for his new business venture. PayU has worked extensively towards creating an encouraging and supportive environment to promote entrepreneurial dreams such as Shailaz’s. We look forward to working with bright and promising minds who have the potential to seek support in making their ventures a success.”
“Dot is a great fit for PayU’s larger vision of developing a fintech ecosystem in India and its aim is to deliver a complete value proposition to our growing customers. We are creating alliances through investments in companies whose vision is aligned to ours. With this investment in Dot, we aim to play a pivotal role in helping offline merchants with their digitization journey,” he added.
Whereas, Shailaz Nag, founder of Dot, after fundraising said, “There is a huge potential in the offline-to-online commerce and fintech sector, offering immense opportunities for the right product. India has the second-largest number of internet users in the world and a rapidly increasing smartphone user base.”
The government and the private sector is generating tremendous demand for digital transformation solutions by brick and mortar stores. I see significant potential in this space, which has led to the conception of Dot,” he said.
Continuing to the statement, Tej Kapoor, co-executive president of Fosun RZ Capital, said, “The Dot team has a deep and intrinsic understanding of the Indian fintech space and a proven history of creating and running successful companies, be it PayU or Ibibo. The current digital experience of offline merchants is broken at many levels and the engagement with customers is non-existent. Dot will change that and consequently create immense value.”
“We believe that Dot has identified an untapped market segment. It is founded by a stellar team and has the first-mover advantage, which is a winning combination,” Sanjeev Bikhchandani, Founder and Executive Vice Chairman, Infor Edge added.