Omnichannel Mobile Phone Retail Brand Gabbardeals Secures Funding from Venture Catalysts

Venture Catalysts, India’s first, largest and pioneering integrated incubator and accelerator platform, has recently invested in Gabbardeals, an omnichannel O2O platform for mobile phones and accessories. The latest funding will allow Gabbardeals to ramp up its operations, expand services and forge new partnerships.

Founded by industry expert & serial entrepreneur Niraj Raka, and co-founded by seasoned professional Poonam Gugale and Piyush Raka, Gabbardeals is committed to transforming the billion-dollar unorganized mobile retail space. The company works on a unique phygital (physical + digital) model that combines the advantages of both offline and online retail, creating a win-win situation for all players – brand, retailer and consumer. The USP of Gabbardeals is that it synergizes offline and online retail to offer fast, seamless delivery of products while bringing down the customer acquisition cost for retailers.

Sharing his insights, Niraj Raka, Founder and CEO, Gabbardeals, commented, “When customers purchase a phone from an e-commerce platform, it takes at least 24 hours for the phone to get delivered. Taking into account the supply chain disruptions caused by the COVID-19 crisis, the delivery can even get delayed by a few days. Through Gabbardeals, however, customers will get their hands on the brand new phone within two hours. We have made this possible by bridging the gap between online and offline retailers. This way Gabbardeals helps e-commerce platforms to cut down their logistics costs and offline stores to acquire a larger customer base.” Bhavesh Solanki who has joined Gabbardeals will be targeting 10000+ Mobile phone sellers to sell on our platform.

Talking about the investment, he added, “We now have the cash runaway to scale our operations, develop technology and achieve sustainable growth.”

Speaking on the investment, Dr Apoorv Ranjan Sharma, Founder, Venture Catalysts, said, “Within a short span of time, Gabbardeals has emerged as a promising player in the mobile retail space. Their omnichannel approach has proven to be effective and profitable, which gives them a winning advantage. This is besides the fact that all the co-founders of Gabbardeals are dynamic leaders and have shown exceptional growth in their own capacities. We are confident that it will fulfil its vision of becoming the fastest-growing omnichannel platform for mobile phones in India and globally.”

Speaking on the occasion, lead investor Tharun Dhariwal of Dhariwal Group, said, "Brands and Customers are discovering channel for Online and Offline with regards to Price and Service respectively. Gabbardeals will be connecting chain through O2O model with the traditional retailers. We are confident on the growth of Gabbardeals with many hands joining together for the fortune of our nation. Standalone shops will be getting a new life in the current E-commerce industry. During this COVID-19 pandemic situation, Gabbardeals is the only hope to provide support many small/medium retailers to double their business."

Aalesh Avlani - Partner, Samyakth Capital said, ‘’ After speaking to a lot of mobile retailers in the market we realized that these retailers struggle with customer acquisition costs & a lack of technology. Gabbardeals has perfectly positioned itself to be a blend of traditional retail and ecommerce by empowering these mobile retailers address these challenges. The Asset-light business model of Gabbardeals will allow them to scale with minimal burn and help them focus on being profitable at a unit-economic level, a theme that has been made more prevalent post the COVID-19 pandemic’’

With a widespread presence spanning across India, Gabbardeals has already established a strong footprint in both metros and small towns. So far, it has tied up with 30+ mobile phone franchise stores. Gabbardeals has sold 26,000+ mobile phones and 17,000+ accessories, registering a gross merchandise volume (GMV) of over Rs 50 crore.

Atlast! Facebook finally becomes profitable

Facebook is making enough money to cover its costs and now has 300 million users, the world’s largest social networking site, said on Tuesday, proving the Internet’s newest star industry can be a viable business.

Facebook is now generating enough cash to cover its operating expenses, as well as the capital spending needed to maintain its fast-growing service.

Analysts said this shows the financial viability of Facebook, which has faced questions about its underlying business model, despite its popularity, and was a good sign for a potential initial public offering.

“It’s certainly meaningful to show that this is absolutely the real deal,” said Broadpoint Amtech analyst Ben Schachter. “They are executing. People are spending money on the site.”

Since its creation in a Harvard dorm room five years ago, Facebook has emerged as one of the Internet’s most popular destinations and is increasingly challenging the Web’s established powerhouses like Yahoo and Google.

Facebook unveiled a revamped search engine last month and is currently testing an online payment system. Facebook users have tripled from about 100 million a year ago.

Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg said in a blog post on the company site on Tuesday that Facebook reached its goal of being free cash flow positive in its most recently ended quarter. The company had previously projected reaching the target sometime in 2010.

“This is important to us because it sets Facebook up to be a strong independent service for the long term,” said Zuckerberg in the blog post.

Facebook spokesperson Larry Yu said the free cash flow metric does not include any cash from private investment.

In May, Facebook announced a $200 million investment from Russian investment firm Digital Sky Technologies in a deal that valued the company’s preferred shares at $10 billion.

DST valued Facebook’s common shares at $6.5 billion in a subsequent deal to purchase shares from Facebook employees.

Facebook’s becoming cash flow positive ahead of schedule provides another nugget of data to back up the lofty valuations, and according to one analyst, makes Facebook a more attractive candidate for a potential public offering.

“They can command higher confidence from investors now,” said Collins Stewart analyst Sandeep Aggarwal, who noted that he believes Facebook could go public in the second half of 2010, or in 2011.

Zuckerberg said in May that any IPO is “a few years out.” Facebook did not provide any other financial details on Tuesday. The company has previously said its revenue was on track to grow 70 percent this year.

Facebook board member Mark Andreesen told Reuters earlier this year that the company will surpass $500 million n revenue this year.

Zuckerberg said in his post that the company is exploring ways to make the service perform faster and more efficiently as the number of Facebook users continues to grow.

Agencies

Can Mumbai, Bangalore emerge as the global capitals?

The Russian capital as well as Indian cities of Mumbai, Bangalore and Hyderabad have every chance of becoming global capitals on par with cities such as New York, London and Tokyo, according to the latest issue of Forbes magazine.

The influential publication assessed the rapidly changing forces driving the global economy, such as the inflow of capital and labour resources, and the pace of infrastructure development, and looked into the future, ranking the Russian capital alongside Shanghai, Beijing, Sao Paolo, Dubai and the Indian cities of Mumbai, Bangalore and Hyderabad.

"Fifteen years ago, Moscow was in the midst of a particularly grungy interlude, filled with stolid people waiting in lines for shoddy consumer goods. Today, its hotel accommodations - cheap if dinghy a quarter century ago - are among the world's most expensive.

Russia's huge energy industry, which dominates all of Europe, is the key factor driving the transformation," Forbes wrote.

The article, published Wednesday, notes that Moscow has had a radical makeover since the collapse of the Soviet Union. The city, where Moscow State University was the tallest building at 240 meters (787 feet), now has a host of skyscrapers including the three tallest buildings in Europe, the highest of which is still under construction.

"With a population of 10 million, Moscow is already Europe's most populous city and could get bigger yet, particularly if energy prices rise," the magazine said.

Although Forbes expects most global capitals of the future to be outside the Western Hemisphere, it includes Calgary in Canada, Perth in Western Australia and the Texan pair of Houston and Dallas in its list.

But the article does recognise that the current centers of financial and political influence - such as Tokyo, New York, London, Paris, Seoul, Singapore and Hong Kong - will not fade into the background for some time to come.

Agencies

Will FII investment touch $2 billion-mark in 2009?

Investment by Foreign Institutional Investors in Indian equities has touched the two billion dollar-mark (nearly Rs 10,000 crore) so far this year, which includes a record single day net purchase of Rs 4,085 crore.

According to the latest available data on SEBI website, FIIs made net purchases worth $2 two billion or about Rs 9,973 crore so far in 2009, with the stock market seeing major investments in the past two weeks.

"FIIs have been in the buying mode for the last couple of months and after their initial sell-off in early 2009, have turned net buyers of Indian equities year-to-date. Positive trend is likely to continue well into FY'10," Angel Broking Head of Research Hitesh Agrawal said.

Yesterday, FIIs put in as much as Rs 4,085 crore ($838 million) in a single day with an over Rs 2,000 crore investment in shares of realty firms DLF alone.

Since the beginning of the new fiscal year, FIIs have started putting money in domestic stocks, including blue-chips like Housing Development Finance Corporation, private sector lender HDFC Bank and realty major DLF.

In May alone, FIIs made gross purchases of equities worth Rs 27,872 crore and sold shares of Rs 18,255 crore, resulting in a net investment of Rs 9,616 crore ($1.93 billion), as per the data available with SEBI.

Three foreign fund houses, Deutsche Securities Mauritius, Euro Pacific Growth Fund and Copthall Mauritius had purchased a total 9.15 crore shares representing 5.39 per cent in DLF for Rs 2,106.1 crore in open market transactions yesterday.

"We believe the positive trend will continue well into FY 2010. Notably, after having reduced their stake in many blue-chip companies in FY 2009 on account of the global liquidity shortage and economic slowdown concerns, FIIs are now coming back into market," Agrawal added.

The previous week also recorded the biggest weekly infusion by FIIs in the current calendar year. With a bulk investment of Rs 1,491 crore in a single day, FIIs remained net buyers in equities in the remaining days.

FIIs have turned net buyers from last week of April, after pulling out a hefty Rs 52,987 crore from Indian stock markets in 2008, which saw Sensex plunging 51 per cent.

Earlier, two Foreign fund houses Capital Group and Sansar Capital Mauritius bought HDFC shares worth Rs 316 crore, while Deutsche Securities bought Rs 422 crore shares of HDFC Bank.

Agrawal said if no further bad news comes, the world wide the markets would revive by 2010 if FII buying spree continues.

"Pre-empting this, FIIs will look at increasing their stakes in firms that are best placed to ride the recovery and large-cap stocks are preferred ones to begin with," he added.

Agencies

Are new technologies rescuing Web start-ups?

Web entrepreneurs are increasingly embracing new technologies from "cloud" computing to new computer languages to try and slash costs as investors disappear because of recession.

Investors and entrepreneurs say cloud computing, new and free programming languages, open-source software, and use of the Internet to distribute and publicize products have made starting a company relatively inexpensive and will allow startups to ride out the credit crunch and recession.

"What you're talking about is life or death," said Drew Clark, director of strategy for IBM's venture capital group, speaking to media on the sidelines of a business conference.

Venture capital investment dived 71 percent in January and is not expected to rebound for much of 2009.

"For the best of these companies, this could be the difference. If this had happened three years ago, they'd be gone," Clark said, adding that IBM advocates open source.

One much talked-about innovation is cloud computing using the Web to access programs and data at remote computer centers. That makes costly, long-term capital expenditure and storage unnecessary.

Persistent concerns about the security of data stored on remote servers and the dependability of external systems are offset by its economic advantages, entrepreneurs say.

"In 2005 we needed 10 to 20 times the money we need today. There was a certain amount that entrepreneurial intelligence couldn't get around. Somehow you had to pay that piper," said James Siminoff, chief executive of Grid.com and Simulscribe, which changes phone messages into text.

One hour and $50

A decade ago, Michael Eisenberg, a general partner with Benchmark Capital in Israel, recalls he had to pay $10,000 each for Sun Microsystems servers.

"Today if I want to start up, it takes me one hour and $50 and I can turn on my capacity from Amazon Web Services from anywhere in the world," Eisenberg said.

Some fledgling companies like Delve Networks are capitalizing on that trend, charging clients over $250 a month to host video on their websites. Delve itself owns little more than the personal computers used by its 20 employees.

Time is critical for start-ups because they burn cash every day. Hence the rise of streamlined programming languages such as this year's hit, Ruby.

Ruby is a free, open-source language that Siminoff's chief technology officer, Mark Dillon, said is so concise he can do in three lines of machine code what it took him 25 lines in Java, an older language. That speeds up program revisions.

Corporations have turned to offering free, open source software -- a boon for cash-strapped start-ups. Sun Microsystems, IBM and others give away software to attract developers and gain contracts.

Finally, Internet marketing allows start-ups to publicize their wares at a fraction the cost of more traditional marketing or advertising campaigns.

"There are all these social conventions about companies that assume they are very big expensive things," said Silicon Valley start-up guru Paul Graham, whose "Y Combinator" invests $10,000 to $20,000 into quick, ultra-cheap startups. "It's just not true anymore."

Agencies