Mangrove Capital Partners, which has invested in companies like Skype, Rdio and Nimbuzz among others, has now invested an undisclosed amount in hybrid e-commerce platform for small retailers StoreKing, reports The Economic Times. While the deal value hasn't been revealed, the ET report pegs the investment size to be around $5-10 million. Interestingly, the link to StoreKing on Mangrove's portfolio of companies page leads to paynearhome.in and StoreKing's website. StoreKing provides small retailers in tier III and tier IV towns a platform to sell their products through kiosks equipped with TV monitors and Android tablets. How it works is, shoppers can browse through products on offer at the kiosks installed in local stores, select a product they would like to buy, pay for it in cash, and then come back the next day to collect the product. Products across categories like Beauty & Health, Food & Nutrition, Sports & Fitness, Footwear, Mobile & Tablets, Jewellery, Apparels and Home & Kitchen among others are on offer at these kiosks StoreKing's website claims to have a presence in over 600 stores across 190 cities and towns in Karnataka, and witnesses more than 50,000 shopper walk-ins at these stores everyday. StoreKing also claims to have over 2 lakh registered customers that have placed orders. The company is planning to open more stores in Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Kerala, though no fixed date has been mentioned on the site. Founded in 2011 by Sridhar Gundaiah, StoreKing has applied for patent for its retail…
