Global Investors Tune in As Live
Video in Ecommerce Takes Off
Live video shopping SaaS platform SWIRL has raised $250,000 in a pre-seed funding round led by global strategic investors and angels based in the US, Singapore, Middle-East and Europe including Gaurav Agarwal (Freedom Financial Network), Asheesh Khaneja (ex-IBM), Siddarth Razdan (FirstBridge Fund), Vineet Sharma (Dentsu) and Nirmal Shah (Prism Advisory) among others.
SWIRL aims to empower brands globally with experiential technology to engage more customers, shorten their purchase journey and accelerate online sales. SWIRL is on a mission to make eCommerce more engaging and human by bringing the in-store shopping experience online. Their cloud based interactive and live video commerce SaaS platform helps both D2C brands and Retail enterprises to directly engage, convert and retain more customers using real-time virtual shopping that can also be whitelabelled and integrated with any existing eCommerce platform such as Shopify, Wix, WordPress, Magento, etc.
Founded in 2020, by Kaizad Hansotia and Bheshaj Joshi, SWIRL helps brands convert (on average) 3x more customers using shoppable short videos, livestream shopping and 1:1 virtual shopping. The technology is state-of-the-art, infinitely scalable and contains a proprietary layer on top of video using text, chat (WhatsApp and SMS) and voice to make the entire shopping experience human-like.
SWIRL is trusted by over 100s of brands including ITC Fabelle, Unlimited Fashion by Arvind, GIVA, Zariin, and more recently has started working with Finnish fashion brand Ivana Helsinki. It has helped brands like BeChef to increase their add-to-cart ratio by 400% and has seen 3x conversion rates compared to traditional eCommerce platforms. On average, SWIRL has helped businesses to shorten their customer journey by cutting down the time it takes for them to purchase by 50-60%.
The consumer adoption of video-led social commerce has not only been accelerated during the pandemic but there is a permanent change in their buying behavior which means that the future of retail and eCommerce belongs to companies that can replicate the offline shopping experience, digitally. Quarterly revenues at SWIRL have increased 300% this year and it will soon begin to raise an institutional round for ramping up its growth and expand to multiple categories beyond eCommerce as it aims to officially enter the US & European markets by early 2022, with a goal to become one of the top 5 businesses in the experiential technology sector.
“Wherever the end consumer is involved, live commerce will play a major role in enabling sales by bridging the online-offline divide. Right now it may be eCommerce, but if other industries such as financial services, real estate, automobile, travel & hospitality adapt, then we are potentially looking at $1 trillion opportunity which means video led sales engagement models will occupy 10-15% of global eCommerce market share by 2025” said Kaizad Hansotia, Founder & CEO of SWIRL.
SWIRL offers businesses full control over the customer data and allows them to get real-time engagement analytics and post-show data points to optimize campaigns for future sales. Additionally, it easily integrates with a wide range of eCommerce platforms such as Shopify, WooCommerce among others without writing a single line of code.
“Just like how WhatsApp displaced SMS for many people, video eCommerce is going to become the new gold standard and make the static image-based online shopping experience a thing of the past” added Bheshaj Joshi, Co-Founder & COO of SWIRL.
The fundraise will be used to support the company’s growth to optimize its multi-cloud video commerce technology platform that enables retailers to empower their in-store associates to provide an immersive video shopping experience for a global audience.
“I believe the SWIRL Live Video Shopping solution is ready for global adoption. Its diverse use-cases across multiple verticals such as fashion, beauty, lifestyle, jewelry, luxury and beyond, have an immediate topline impact and increased conversion rates. The ROI is just amazing for both SMB’s and large enterprises that are building their direct-to-consumer channels” said Asheesh Khaneja on investing in the funding round.
“I think video social interactive commerce is an idea whose time has come and 5G will only accelerate this trend. Happy to be a part of SWIRL’s journey to becoming a global leader in this space” said Siddarth Razdan on investing in the funding round.
