Elevation Capital led a $3.5 million seed round for Ping, a conversational community commerce app. Ping facilitates commerce and communication among various residential communities for agricultural producers, local manufacturers, and home-based business owners.
The funds raised will be used for platform innovation and development, strategic hiring, and expansion across all major Indian cities.
Commenting on the fundraise, Vartika Bansal, Founder, Ping said, “The maker economy in India is booming, and with the rising ecommerce penetration, a strong movement to provide, preserve, and celebrate makers and their identities is emerging."
"At Ping, our vision is to augment this movement through an effective, conversational community platform that directly connects farmers, makers, and producers with local residential communities. We want to be at the forefront in catalysing the growth of local entrepreneurship by empowering these business owners to reach a larger pool of new and repeat customers."
"On the other hand, for consumers, our goal is to provide a verified selection of authentic local businesses to purchase from whilst allowing greater transparency in transactions”.
Vartika, a Stanford Graduate School of Business and IIT Bombay alumna, founded Ping in July 2020. Vartika has extensive experience launching and leading business verticals as a result of her time at Uber Eats and OYO. Because of the company's remote-first focus, the founding team is dispersed across the country.
The many WhatsApp groups used by farmers, makers, and other sellers to sell directly to residents of housing societies inspired Ping's conversational app.
According to the company, while they are skilled in their craft, they are not very skilled in generating and scaling demand. Some try to navigate the ineffective B2C and social-media channels, while others end up selling to B2B clients such as hotels and high-end restaurants.
Ping is currently active in four metro cities: Bengaluru, Mumbai, Gurugram, and Hyderabad, with over 400 active residential communities on its platform and plans to add over 3,000 more. More than 500 businesses and individuals from various industries, including baked goods, agricultural produce, pet supplies, home decor, and others, are among the creators.
Mukul Arora, Partner, Elevation Capital, added, "We are seeing a very strong emergence of makers of unique products across a number of categories such as fruits and vegetables, F&B, beauty, etc. Urban consumers are also increasingly opting for such unique products over mass-produced alternatives. Ping is making it really easy for consumers to discover and buy from these makers, while enabling makers' to sell, build a brand and create and maintain a loyal customer base. We are really excited to partner with Vartika in this journey to unlock a new market."
