New Delhi: BigFoot Retail Solutions Pvt. Ltd, which owns and operates e-commerce-enabling solutions provider KartRocket, on Tuesday said it has raised $2 million from an undisclosed Japanese investor, in addition to $6 million it raised in January to close the round.

The $6 million round was led by Bertelsmann India Investments, the strategic investment arm of German media conglomerate Bertelsmann SE and Co. Existing investors Nirvana Digital India Fund, Nirvana Digital Investment Holding Co. Ltd, US-based 500 Startups and Singapore-based Beenext also participated in the round.

New Delhi-based KartRocket caters to the small and medium enterprises market in India by enabling merchants to go online. It provides companies web and mobile phone sites, payments and logistics capabilities and marketing and promotion tools.

To strengthen its offering, in September KartRocket also launched a mobile-first online-to-offline marketplace, Kraftly, which targets small sellers, individuals and home-based entrepreneurs in India in product categories such as apparel and accessories.

A major part of the current funding will be used towards enhancing Kraftly.

“Keeping in mind Kraftly’s single vision of allowing every seller to participate in e-commerce, the investment will help us with cutting-edge product development, talent acquisition, seller ecosystem development and performance marketing,” said Saahil Goel, chief executive officer and co-founder, KartRocket. Kraftly has over 15,000 shops and claims to be adding over 17,000 listings per day.

According to Goel, the current ecosystem is not supportive of integrating smaller sellers into e-commerce. There are over 50 million homepreneurs (entrepreneurs working out of home) and small sellers in India who currently do not have sufficient mediums of launching their sales online.

Recently, the company hired Ankit Sood, a former Avendus Capital banker, as its chief financial officer and Akshay Ghulati as chief business officer for Kraftly. Ghulati was earlier working with Amazon as a senior manager.

Big Foot Retail raised $2 million in its first round of funding led by Nirvana Venture with participation by 500 Startups and Japan-based Beenos Inc. in October 2015.

[“source-Livemint”]