Exclusive: Mobile marketing and consumer rewards startup Crownit raising fresh funds

Gurgaon-based GoldVIP Technology Solutions Pvt. Ltd, which runs mobile-based marketing and customer rewards management platform Crownit, is raising $3.5 million (Rs 22.82 crore) in a fresh round, two people aware of the development told Techcircle.in.

Crownit’s existing investors will infuse the capital across multiple tranches, said one person, requesting anonymity. The second person, mentioned above, said that the company was likely to raise the round at a lower post-money valuation, in comparison to the Rs 2.54 crore bridge round it had raised in February.

Crownit was valued at Rs 138-140 crore in the bridge round, which saw the participation of existing investors Accel and Helion Partners.

Techcircle.in, however, could not ascertain who all are participating in the current round. It was also not clear whether this is part of a larger funding round.

E-mail queries to Crownit co-founders Sameer Grover and Ashish Munjal did not elicit any response till the time of publishing this report.

In May 2016, it had raised about $4 million from a clutch of investors, including Accel Partners and Helion Venture. Japan-based Spiral Ventures was also among its investors.

Two months later, it had secured an undisclosed sum from Freshworks CEO Girish Mathrubootham, Freecharge’s Kunal Shah and Sandeep Tandon, and Anand Chandrasekaran, the former chief product officer of Snapdeal.

Founded in 2014, Crownit offers cash-back deals at restaurants and retail shops, besides providing technology support to run marketing programmes for local businesses. Users can get cash-back offers by shopping online, booking movie tickets and paying bills, among other things.

Besides, Crownit also has a research and analytics platform, offering market research and analytics requirements for national and international brands and research agencies, according to the company website.

Grover is an alumnus of Delhi College of Engineering, while Munjal has an MBA from Institute of Management Technology, Ghaziabad. Both had stints in cloud telephony firm Knowlarity Communications.

It claims to serve 10,000-plus local merchants, including restaurants, salons, weekend getaways, fitness studios and retailers, across Delhi-NCR, Mumbai and Bengaluru. The firm claims to have a user base of over 12 lakh.

Its customers include McDonalds, Emami, L’oreal, Lenskart, Pizza Hut, RBL Bank, BookmyShow and Netmeds.

During 2016-17, its operational revenue grew nearly 53% to Rs 4.47 crore from Rs 2.92 crore in the previous fiscal year, according to data sourced from VCCEdge, the data and research platform of News Corp VCCircle.

Its net loss fell to Rs 28.74 crore, from Rs 31.5 crore during the period under consideration, while its gross expenses saw a dip from Rs 35.4 crore to at Rs 34. 5 crore.

In the rewards and loyalty programme segment, the company competes with the likes of Magicpin, which had raised $6.6 million in a Series B round from existing investor Lightspeed Venture Partners and Vy Capital, last May. In March, online media publication Entrackr had reported that it had raised $1 million in venture debt from Trifecta Capital.