Wishlink, a content creator-focused Indian commerce startup, has initiated talks with a host of investors such as Sequoia Capital, Matrix Partners, Lightspeed Venture Partners, and Bessemer Venture Partners to raise capital for its Series A round, DealStreetAsia has learnt.
While the deal size may not be ‘as huge’, the transaction is significant as it goes on to highlight the growing importance of social media influencers in driving sales for several brands and categories.
Wishlink equips content creators and social media influencers with links to their own virtual storefronts, where they can tag products with their social media posts, create curated collections of their favourite products and make it easy for their followers to shop from their recommendations.
Separate emails sent to Wishlink, Sequoia Capital, Matrix Partners, Lightspeed Venture Partners, and Bessemer Venture Partners did not elicit any response at the time of publishing the story.
Influencers have been in the market but their association with brands was earlier categorized as paid collaborations. However, there has been a shift in that perception as they increasingly endorse brands they love and guide others on the Internet.
According to Tracxn, Wishlink’s valuation was pegged at $10.9 million as on May 23, 2022. This was just months before the new-age startup raised $3 million in funding led by early-stage venture capital firm Elevation Capital in October.
The round, back then, also saw the participation of some prominent angel investors with the likes of Vidit Aatrey and Sanjeev Barnwal (both from Meesho); Rahul Chaudhary (Treebo), Ankush Sachdeva (Sharechat), Ghazal Alagh (Mamaearth), and Shantanu Deshpande (Bombay Shaving Company), among others.
Wishlink currently claims to drive sales and traffic for over 60 brands such as H&M, Westside, Faballey, Indya, Aurelia, Wrogn, Libas, G.O.A.T Labs and e-commerce platforms including Amazon, Flipkart and Ajio.
Some of its indirect competitors include Olapic, a user-generated, influencer, and short-form video content platform for brands in the US; Sim Sim, an Indian app-based platform that allows users to discover products and shop via videos; and HYPD, which claims to be Asia’s first creator-owned marketplace that allows users to browse products with the help of short videos.
The creator-led marketplace has seen deal traction in recent years. While Olapic to date has raised $21.1 million in funding over 4 rounds; Simsim, which was acquired by YouTube in 2021, had raised about $17 million till then. Meanwhile, HYPD made headlines early last year for raising $1.5 million in seed funding from Better Capital, and Sauce VC, among others.