EkAnek Networks, a new age e-commerce startup on September 14 said it has raised $5.4 million in a funding round led by Alpha Wave Incubation, a $300 million fund managed by Falcon Edge Capital.
Its existing investors- venture funds Sequoia India, Lightspeed India and Matrix Partners India also participated in the round.
EkAnek runs a beauty and grooming platform Foxy, which offers customers a personalised shopping experience that incorporates selfie-analysis and targeted curation. Foxy will also offer local, regional and international brands a platform to build relationships between brands, influencers and shoppers. This enables selling to consumers directly, including curation, logistics, marketing tools, influencer networks and video commerce. EkAnek currently has over 120 brands and over 6,000 beauty and grooming influencers on the platform.
EkAnek will also use the funds to expand to Abu Dhabi (where new investor Alpha Wave is also based), which will serve as its base for expansion in the Middle East. It also plans to hire data scientists, product managers and engineers in Abu Dhabi.
Kartik Sheth, founder of EkAnek said in a statement: “We are very excited to announce this fundraise; the faith reposed by marquee investors in EkAnek is a great validation of the idea and the team behind this venture. UAE is an exciting and evolved beauty & grooming market.”
Navroz Udwadia, managing director of Falcon Edge Capital, said: “We are delighted to partner with EkAnek. Foxy will offer mobile-first consumers a differentiated approach to supply, curation and fulfilment of beauty products. In addition, EkAnek’s unique B2B2C full-stack offering will drive tighter brand relationships with the platforms and consumers, to offer consumers globally an unrivalled experience of beauty products.”
EkAnek raised $10 million in a seed funding round led by Sequoia, Matrix and Lightspeed in March last year.
