Social Commerce Startup Grupin Receives 42 Billion Rupiah Funding Led by Surge

Platform developer startups social commerce "Grupin" announced that it has received initial funding of $3 million or the equivalent of 42 billion Rupiah. This round was led by Surge from Sequoia Capital India. Also involved are Skystar Capital and East Ventures. Grupin is part of the sixth cohort of Surge accelerator program.

Grupin was founded by Kevin Sandjaja and Ricky Christie in January 2021. Kevin himself was previously known as CEO of Pegipegi.

Like an app social commerce existing ones, Grupin offers a community-based shopping experience to consumers collectively, with the aim of getting better price deals. The goods provided are about daily needs such as basic necessities, kitchen utensils, baby products, to electronics. For now, this service is only available for the Greater Jakarta and Bandung areas.

“With the mushrooming E-commerce, especially since the beginning of the pandemic, consumers want a shopping experience that is different, but also has aspects that they discover personally offline, which is an experience that not only provides competitively priced products, but also has social interaction. At Grupin, we offer this shopping experience, which is very attractive to customers in Indonesia, because it is linked to the values ​​of gotong royong, namely working together to achieve a common goal," said Grupin Co-Founder Kevin Sandjaja.

He continued, "Not only do we provide customers with greater value for their money, but also enable producers, MSMEs, as well as farmers to reach new consumers. With this funding, we plan to strengthen our team and expand our network of cooperation with producers. both inside and outside Indonesia."

How Groups work

To use this service, after downloading the application and registering in it, the user can select the required items. Then, users are asked to invite friends to join the group by sharing a special link. Once the group meets the minimum number of people, the product can be purchased and will be sent to each member's home address.

Each item offer has different conditions for the number of group members. Grupin also provides offering features that are always tailored based on location, browsing behavior, purchasing preferences and purchasing power.

"Additionally, customers can share the best deals and products with their friends and family within the app itself, providing a unique shopping experience that has a different feel to the social aspect of what some platforms offer. E-commerce others," he added.

Collective buying business model

Grupin is not the first to play a business model E-commerce with the concept of collective buying. Previously, other startups also had similar features, you name it we buy. Recently, KitaBeli has completed series A funding worth more than $10 million supported by Go-Ventures, East Ventures, and a number of other investors.

This business model is believed to be suitable for the Indonesian market, especially to target users in the regions tier-2 and 3. This collective shopping model can also attract consumers who are not familiar with shopping online online. In addition, the strong community network among neighbors in the regions is considered suitable for collective purchases like this – especially when they can get a more affordable price.

This is one of several business models that can be applied social commerce. Another model is a partnership, allowing micro entrepreneurs [individuals] to have a selling business without having to have large capital to stock goods. Some startups that play in this realm are Evermos and RateS.