Shopsense Retail Technology Private Limited, d/b/a Fynd is an Indian e-commerce company based in Mumbai, Maharashtra, India. It provides an omnichannel, online-to-offline platform to fashion retailers, by sourcing products and getting their inventory on its online marketplace.[1]
Fynd was founded by Farooq Adam, Harsh Shah and Sreeraman MG in Mumbai, India, in September 2012.[2] The company initially started as Shopsense, a specialized service to improve consumer experience with brands to make a better buying experience for its users. In 2015, the company rebranded itself to Fynd and launched its platform as an online marketplace.[3] Fynd introduced two products, Fynd Marketplace for vendors and Fynd Store for customers.[4][5]
As of March 2020, Fynd has raised over $4.4 million in seven funding rounds.[6] In August 2019, Reliance Industries (RIL) announced that it has acquired an 87.6% stake in Fynd for $42.33 million with an option to invest another ₹100 crores next year.[7][8][9][10]
Fynd was founded in 2012 by Farooq Adam, Harsh Shah and Sreeraman MG, alumni of IIT Bombay and formerly worked for technology companies. Fynd initially focused on selling lifestyle products from branded stores. Soon, they created a technology platform for merchants to manage their sales across multiple sales channels, including e-commerce platforms. They worked on creating an all service platform for vendors as Fynd.com. Following its launch, Fynd slowly and gradually grew in prominence and was receiving several orders per day. In 2016, the company launched Fify, a conversation bot to offer personal virtual shopping assistant experience to their users.[11][12]
As of 2020, over 600 fashion brands and 9,000 stores are connected through Fynd’s platform across India.[13][14]
In 2015, Fynd launched their mobile application for Android and iOS users and began fulfilling orders from fashion stores.[15] Next year, the company launched an omnichannel in-store product, to connect online and offline retail.[16][17][18]
In 2019, the company launched a direct-to-retail (B2B) application which allowed shopkeepers in Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities to expand their online business.[19] In the same year, Fynd launched an AI-based tool, a Google Chrome extension for searching visually similar products.[20][21]
The company claims to operate pan-India and does not own any warehouse or logistics unit.[22] Fynd has helped brick-and-mortar businesses sell their products to consumers through their online store.[23] The company focused on building partnerships with vendors, who were not selling online and targeted the emerging growing online industry in India.[24]
Fynd uses its platform to process thousands of orders placed on its website every day. Orders are forwarded to their vendors, who pack, label, and weigh the boxes. The boxes are recorded and given to the logistics and delivered by them to the users.[25]
Fynd is based in Mumbai, India. It began service in the major metropolitans of India and as of 2020, it now serves all major cities in India.[26]
Initially, Fynd raised fundings from Kae Capital and a few angel investors in their seed round.[27] Later, Fynd raised multiple fundings in 2017: first, an undisclosed funding from Anand Chandrasekaran, Chief Product Officer of Snapdeal;[28] then in March it raised $500,000 from Venture Catalysts.[29][30] Two months later, the company again raised $500,000 in Series A from Silicon Valley-based venture capital fund Rocketship.[31] In June 2017, the company received $3.4 million from IIFL Seed Ventures, Venture Catalyst and others.[32][33][34][35]
In March 2018, Fynd announced that it had raised an undisclosed amount of funding in its Series C round led by Google with participation from previous backers.[36]
In August 2019, Reliance Industries announced that they have acquired a major stake of 87.6% in Fynd for 295 crores with an option to further invest up to ₹100 crores by December 2021.[37][38][39]