On Tuesday, Youtube has announced that it has closed the deal to acquire the social commerce platform Simsim. When asked about the financial details, both parties did not reveal any details.
YouTube Buys Simsim
Two-year-old Simsim has been bought by video giant Youtube on Tuesday. Though, both the parties did not say anything about the deal amount, but as per the internal reports, the deal amount maybe around $70 million. When contacted, Simsim CEO also did not comment on anything related to the deal.
Simsim has raised around $17 million to date. It was valued at $50.1 million after the series B round concluded in 2020.
Talking about Simsim and the growth of social commerce platforms, Rohan Malhotra of Good Capital said that micro-influencers are the next big thing in the Indian e-commerce industry. They have a direct connection with the audience. It helps them to grow the targeted audience with trust. These influencers produce entertaining videos and other content to attract their fans. Good Capital is one of the early backers of Simsim.
Internet users also need a connection like offline commerce to trust the brand and the complete process. Social commerce platform like Simsim is bridging the gap among influencers, brands, and customers.
How Current Deal will Help Youtube and Simsim?
Talking about the recent development, Youtube’s Asia Pacific Vice President Gautam Anand said that the Simsim platform will continue offering its services independently. There will not be big changes in the operations of Simsim except the integration of Simsim product offers on the Youtube platform.
Simsim co-founders Amit Bagaria, Kunal Suri, and Saurabh Vashishtha looked enthusiastic after cracking a deal with Youtube. In a joint statement, they said that Simsim was founded with a mission to make shopping easy for Indian users. The startup helped small business firms to connect with the right buyers with the help of online influencers. The current deal with Youtube will help the startup in achieving its mission on a larger scale.
YouTube is on the way to integrate shopping features on its platform. The firm is doing beta testing of such features in the USA and Simsim acquisition is another step towards launching the same features in India. Current investment in Simsim is also a part of Google’s ongoing investment in India that includes the $10 billion India Digitization Fund.
Founded in July 2019, Simsim provides social commerce services via its app in three main languages- Hindi, Tamil, and Bangla. Shunwei Capital and Accel Partners are the major investors of the social commerce platform Simsim.
