Appie Mobiquity Pvt. Ltd, a Mumbai-based offline retail discovery platform raised $1 million funding (around Rs 6.7 crore) from a Mumbai-based angel investor and two European investors.
“We plan to add 10,000 retailers across three cities and expand user base to half a million in the first year,” Kartik Sanghavi, founder of Appie said. As an O2O platform, we tied up with 1,200 retailers in Mumbai. The app is currently in beta mode and a formal launch is scheduled in June. The firm charges a commission of 0.2-0.9% per transaction from the retailers.
In the online-to-offline (O2O) market, Appie’s competitors include Fashalot (raises fund fom yournest), Zakoopi and Ratale, Paytm (acquire Near.in).
The O2O theory works on when users express an intent for buying a product, the retailer use the app to reach out to them and give them the best price.