Company looks to exponentially grow its user base
Mumbai: Freecharge.in, the online recharge website that has launched a new business model for online lead generation and couponing, has announced a funding of Rs. 20 crores from Sequoia Capital. The funds will be used to add new products, add merchants who can use Freecharge to target consumers, and to advertise the service to consumers. The company received a seed investment from Sequoia Capital in 2011, followed by a Series A more recently.
Freecharge.in has developed a unique and innovative business model by introducing the concept of ‘free recharge’. Freecharge.in offers savings to the consumer in the form of coupons from 50+ major merchants, equal to the value of recharge. Since its launch less than 18 months ago, Freecharge.in’s customer base has grown to 1.5 million. The company currently has tens of thousands of transactions/day on its website, making it one of the highest transacting websites in India.
“There are over 600mm pre-paid mobile phone users in India, and we’re offering them a convenient and easy way to recharge their phones or pay their DTH bills online, and we offer them discounts of equal value at a merchant of their choice. At our end, we are excited about the intelligence we are building around the consumer’s preferences and the ability to target better offers to them, and driving hundreds of thousands of transactions to our merchant partners every month.” said Kunal Shah, Co-Founder & CEO, Accelyst Solutions Pvt. Ltd., the parent company to Freecharge.in
Shailendra Singh, Managing Director, Sequoia Capital said, “Freecharge has created a new online model, enabled by couponing. We were attracted to Freecharge because it isn’t another daily deals site, but one that leverages a very localized phenomenon of pre-paid mobile and DTH services, to generate demand for large merchants. Freecharge allows merchants to publicize offers, that consumers pay a small fee for, thereby establishing very strong intent. Some of the e-commerce merchants that offer coupons on Freecharge have seen their sales grow 50-100% due to Freecharge alone.”
Freecharge provides free recharge for a range of services including mobile, DTH TV and data card for internet services. Freecharge.in has currently partnered with over 50 retailers including McDonalds, Barista, Café Coffee Day, Fastrack, Puma, Domino’s, Crossword, Croma, Shoppers Stop, Pizza Hut and a host of e-commerce websites.
About Sequoia Capital
Sequoia Capital currently manages funds capitalized at close to US $1.4 billion and invests across venture, growth and late stage opportunities in India. It takes a long-term view on investments and plays the role of an active, value added partner to entrepreneurs, business families and management teams. Over the last 10 years, Sequoia Capital has invested in more than 50 Indian companies including Café Coffee Day, Comviva, Fashionandyou, Idea Cellular, Just Dial, Manappuram Finance, Paras, Prakash Snacks, Prizm Payments, Quick Heal, Micromax, Mu Sigma, Via and Vasan Health Care. Sequoia Capital operates out of offices in Bangalore, Mumbai and New Delhi.
Globally, Sequoia Capital has an unparalleled track record of partnering with entrepreneurs to create global market leaders. Sequoia Capital has been an early investor in companies such as Google, Cisco, Yahoo, YouTube, Oracle, Apple, Zappos, Dropbox, and LinkedIn. Sequoia Capital maintains dedicated teams in US, China, Indiaand Israel.
For more information, please visit: www.sequoiacap.com/india
About Freecharge.in
Freecharge.in is a business unit of Accelyst Solutions Pvt. Ltd co-founded by Kunal Shah and Sandeep Tandon. Freecharge.in enables the user to recharge his/her mobile phone, internet data card or DTH service. For every recharge done on Freecharge.in, it provide discount coupons of top Indian food joints and retailers, equivalent to the recharge amount. These coupons are delivered both by snail mail and through email. Users can save money on eat outs, movies, gaming, music, grocery and more, while paying for their recharge online.
For more information, please visit: http://www.freecharge.in/
PR Contact:
Sashi Ghising
The PRactice
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