Social mobile-commerce startup Shop101 has raised series A funding of $5 million led by Stellaris Venture Partners. Shop101's existing investors including Vy Capital, TaxiForSure co-founder Raghunandan G. and Ramakant Sharma, Livspace co-founder also participated in the round. As a part of the deal, Rahul Chowdhri, partner at Stellaris Venture Partners will join the company's board. Started by IIT Kanpur graduated Abhinav Jain and Aditya Gupta in 2015, the Mumbai-based social e-commerce startup allows people to manage their e-tailing businesses via social networks such as WhatsApp, Instagram, and Facebook. Shop101, is a mobile app which essentially allows sellers like housewives, graduates, individuals or small business owners, to sell on social platforms and procure supply directly from manufacturers and brands. The company said that the company will use the capital to strengthen its core leadership and product team, scale the supplier network and enhance the technology platform. In a statement founder and CEO Abhinav Jain said that the company have grown 25-30% month on month over the last couple of years and has about 3 lakh sellers on its platform. Competition Social network biggies like Instagram, WhatsApp, and Facebook already offer tools for small businesses. Apart from these, Shop101 competes with players like Meesho, Shopmatic, Zepo, Kartrocket and Shopify. -In October last year, Meesho raised funding of $3.1 million from SAIF Partners and its existing investors Y Combinator and Venture Highway. -In June 2017, Singapore based e-commerce platform for sellers, Shopmatic raised $5.7 million in a round of pre-Series A funding from ACP Pte Ltd and Spring SEEDS Capital Pte Ltd. -In March…
