Lifestyle-community-commerce platform, Trell has raised $4 million in a pre-Series A round led by Sequoia Capital India’s Surge, Beijing-headquartered fund Fozun RZ Capital and KTB Network. Existing investors Beenext, WEH Ventures and Sprout Ventures also participated in the round.
The Bengaluru-based company said it will use the funds to strengthen its technology stack, acquire talent and grow the community. Trell is looking to penetrate deeper into new Tier 2, Tier 3 markets in India by adding content in ten regional languages by the end of 2020, it said in a statement.
Trell was a part of the second cohort of Surge, Sequoia Capital India’s scale-up program. With this round, Trell has raised $5.5 million so far.
Launched in August 2017, by IIT Bombay alumni Arun Lodhi, Prashant Sachan, Pulkit Agrawal and NITIE alumnus Bimal Kartheek Rebba, Trell is a mobile app that enables users to share recommendations and reviews in lifestyle categories such as fashion, cooking, wellness, movies and travel.
Trell said that the app has five million monthly active users. Its regional influencers share content in Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, English, and Hindi.
“The creation guidelines on Trell do not encourage selling or promoting a product directly. It’s about telling your story and personal experiences that are helping thousands of micro-communities in India to make purchase decisions. Brands, as well as sellers, have been approaching us realising the long-term potential of content-commerce in the presence of a strong community,” Prashant Sachan, co-founder of Trell, said.
“At Fosun, it is our endeavor to support passionate young teams solving critical problems. Trell solves for the discovery of lifestyle choices for the next half billion population coming online. It is the largest platform in India growing at 25% month-on-month with strong engagement metrics. By extending the discovery to transactions, Trell can provide holistic solutions to their consumers,” Krishna Vinjamuri, Executive Director of Fosun RZ Capital said.
Trell’s angel investors include TaxiForSure co-founder Aprameya Radhakrishna, LivSpace co-founder Ramakant Sharma, and Shaadi.com founder Anupam Mittal.
