Posted by New Delhi: We Founder Circle (WFC), a startup investment platform has invested in SaaS startup Karnival.
Karnival is a SaaS-based customer engagement platform for retailers and brands to create personalized post-purchase customer journeys using smart receipts technology.
Offline retailers have no mechanism to engage with the customer effectively apart from traditional loyalty programs. The lack of engaging feedback loop from the customer leads to customer churn thereby decreasing CLV with the current models. Omni-channel customer journey required engaging with customers post-purchase to add value to the engagement.
The traditional loyalty programs have a lot of friction which leads to customer drop-out. Karnival with its frictionless SaaS platform reaches out to customers digitally post-purchase using the Smart Receipt platform. This opens a huge opportunity for post-purchase commerce.
The seed funding round worth $250,000 witnessed participation from marquee investors including Krishna Kumar- Founder Simplilearn, Dravya Dholakia -Dholakia Ventures, Shashwat Kumar- Khetal Advisors Singapore, Abhay Tandon -Corporate Leader, Dinesh Agrawal- Corporate Leader; Avnish Sabharwal- Corporate Leader; Abhishek Kishore Gupta -Corporate Leader; Suman Das- Corporate Leader and Karnival had previously raised $35,000 in the pre-seed round in 2020 from Sanjay Mehta backed 100X.VC
According to Neeraj Tyagi, Co-Founder and CEO – We Founder Circle, post-pandemic, not only have people become more digitally equipped but also businesses. As businesses are looking for solutions to expand, operate, manage and serve remotely, SaaS and cloud-based solutions will play a big role.
“Also, for this particular sector, we in India are blessed with both quality talent and economic viability. This together widens the scope for Indian startups like Karnival who are offering global solutions, to make an impact both in India and globally,” said Tyagi.
According to Siddharth Mishra, Founder and CEO – Karnival, there is always a need for constant innovation and Karnival is playing the same role in the retail sector.
“Indian retail industry is worth more than $1 trillion now. We are trying to leap into a sector that big. The objective is to move from paper-based receipts to smart digital receipts to create an ecosystem keeping customer experience unique,” said Mishra.
“In a very short period, we have already associated with leading retailers and brands, revolutionizing their procedures. We aim at associating with over 500 brands by 2021 FY end,” added Mishra.
The startup’s SaaS platform is deployed in more than 50 marquee retailers and brands. Aditya Birla Retail Limited, Titan Company Limited, Lulu Group UAE, Spar Hypermarket, Fab India and Pantaloons are among them.
With deployment across 5000 plus stores, the SaaS platform is generating 4.5 million receipts a month and facilitating more than $100 million worth of transactions.