Venture Catalysts, India’s first, largest and leading incubator and accelerator platform invested in Gabbardeals, an omnichannel O2O platform for mobile phones and accessories. This investment will allow Gabbardeals to improve its operations, expand it’s services and start new partnerships.
It is mainly founded by industry expert & serial entrepreneur Niraj Raka, and co-founded by Poonam Gugale and Piyush Raka, Gabbardeals . The company uses a different model known as phygital (physical + digital) model. This model combines the pros of both offline and online retail, creating a favourable situation for the different brands, retailers and consumers. Gabbardeals combines both offline and online retail to offer fast and hassle-free delivery of products and at the same time brings down the customer acquisition cost for retailers.
Niraj Raka, Founder and CEO, Gabbardeals said that when a customers orders a phone from an e-commerce site, it takes minimum 24 hours for the phone to get delivered. Considering the current situation the delivery time is bound to increase because their is a complete disruption of the entire chain starting from production till logistics. Gabbardeals will ensure that customers get their brand new phone within few hours. Gabbardeals will help the e-commerce platforms to reduce their logistic costs and the offline stores to get a greater customer base. Bhavesh Solanki who has joined Gabbardeals will target 1000+ mobile phone sellers to sell their platform.
Speaking on the investment, Dr Apoorv Ranjan Sharma, Founder, Venture Catalysts, said that Gabbardeals has emerged as a strong and potential player in the mobile retail space. Their “phygital” model is both effective and profitable. He further added that co-founders of Gabbardeals are all robust leaders. They have full faith that Gabbardeals will achieve its aim of becoming the fastest and pioneer omnichannel platform for mobile phones in India and abroad.
Lead investor Tharun Dhariwal of Dhariwal Group, said that both brands and customers are trying to get Online and Offline channels due to better price and service. Gabbardeals will use the O2O model for connecting chains to the traditional retailers. They have full faith on Gabbardeals. The commercial shops will play a major role in the current E-commerce market. During this COVID-19 pandemic situation, Gabbardeals will support the small/medium retailers to improve their business in this pandemic situation.
Aalesh Avlani – Partner, Samyakth Capital said that due to e-commerce market the offline mobile retailers suffer a lot. Gabbardeals is the perfect combination of the offline and online market. Gabbardeals will follow an Asset-light business model which will help them fetch better profits at a unit-economic level.
Gabbardeals has already established itself in metros and small towns. It already has tied up with 30+ mobile phone franchise stores. It has over sold 26,000+ mobile phones and 17,000+ accessories, bringing a gross merchandise volume (GMV) of over Rs 50 crore.
