New Delhi : Founded in 2021 by two IIT Bombay alumni – Rahul Gope and Anjan Kumar Patel, Oyela is a collaborative commerce platform making the next generation ready for entrepreneurship. The platform empowers emerging social savvy businesses, product creators and artists to sell to their audience and grow their business. Further building their platform, the founders have secured INR 144 million in the Seed funding round led by Prime Venture Partners.

Through Oyela, businesses can easily set-up and manage their digital storefronts. Oyela empowers sellers to grow their business by – providing them with tools to collaborate with each other for better reach, streamline their operations, and Instagram Automation to secure more sales by harnessing their social reach. Over time, it will also help them in building their supply chain. In other words, Oyela transforms their Social Media like Instagram into a hyper sales channel.

Social commerce is rapidly growing in India. According to a report by Bain & Company, the social commerce sector in India is set to become a $20 billion market by 2025. It’s expected to be driven by an increasing number of small and medium businesses turning to social media channels for sales.

For Millennials and GenZs, starting a business online has become second nature. They are starting their own businesses on platforms like Instagram, selling products like clothing, digital gadgets, home decor and handmade jewellery. As per a Deloitte survey, 63% of Millennials and GenZs aspire to start something of their own, build an identity and become financially independent. However, social media platforms are not originally designed for commercial purposes, thus, presenting a barrier.. Although these businesses start with big aspirations, many of them shut down due to lack of discovery, operational barriers and support. This is where Oyela steps in – harnessing the power of collaborations and the store’s social reach to boost their sales.

Indian buyers seek trust while purchasing from social media businesses. Oyela creates that trust layer for buyers to believe in the seller’s storefront – by showing transparent reviews of the business, protecting buyers when they shop from any business’s Oyela storefronts. Oyela aspires to act as an ISO certification for social media businesses.

Last year, the company secured INR 41 million pre-seed funding from a consortium of investors that included Good Capital, Upsparks Capital, and Eximius Ventures. With this new infusion of capital from Prime Venture Partners, Oyela plans to (1) bolster its e-commerce tech, (2) build conversational commerce engines to empower selling on Pinterest, YouTube, Threads and (3) streamline the supply chain to empower aspirational GenZs to start and grow their own Instagram stores. In the next 5 years, Oyela aims to power 2 million social stores, thus making up for 1.6% of the e-commerce market and 9.5% of the social commerce market in India.

“The inspiration behind Oyela is deeply personal. Hailing from the Andaman Islands, I once ran an online pearl boutique. Ultimately, my venture died down due to lack of discovery and operational barriers. Seeing the explosion of creative entrepreneurship in India, I recognised that these challenges could resonate with aspiring entrepreneurs. Oyela was born from this vision, aiming to provide others with the tools and opportunities I wish I had during my entrepreneurial journey,” said Rahul Gope, Co-founder & CEO, Oyela. “We are thrilled to welcome Prime Venture Partners as our newest partner in this exciting journey. The new funds will allow us to further enhance our platform and help us achieve our dream of empowering 2 million social stores in the next 5 years.”

Speaking about the investment, Amit Somani, Managing Partner, Prime Venture Partners, said, “The GenZ population are e-commerce natives and are also open to experimenting with fashion. Currently, there are more than 200M businesses/sellers on Instagram globally. The next 10 years of e-commerce growth will have a meaningful contribution from these Gen Z sellers. Oyela provides solutions to streamline and automate their social-media led commerce business. We are impressed by the team at Oyela and we believe they are on the brink of transforming the social commerce landscape in India. The team has shown remarkable insight in recognising the challenges faced by Instagram sellers and offering a solution that not only solves these issues but opens up new avenues for growth. This is an exciting time in the social commerce sector, and we believe Oyela is perfectly positioned to make the most of the opportunities that lie ahead.”

In the last 12 months, more than 20,000 Instagram stores have joined Oyela organically, many of whom have seen up to 2.5X growth in orders at ₹0 cost of new buyer acquisition. Oyela’s growth has also been marked by technology innovation to foster entrepreneurship among the youth, especially women. 60% of the businesses using the platform are women led. In-fact more than 13% of buyers who have bought from any store via the platform have started their own stores on Oyela.

Vitsi, the founder of @fresh_pick_with_love, an Instagram store with 50,000+ followers shares “Amid the surge in Instagram businesses, I started FPWL on Instagram in August 2020 as a part-time business. My fiancé left his job at one of the largest IT MNCs and with Oyela, we transformed our business into the primary source of income. In just one year, we have achieved 18,000+ sales making a revenue of INR 15 million . Through our Oyela earnings, we have opened a physical store as well.”