Pepperfry raises 8 million dollars in Series B funding

Online lifestyle marketplace Pepperfry.com has raised

eight million dollars from Norwest Venture Partners in Series B funding. The company had also raised five million dollars from NVP in December 2011. While most of the e-platforms focus on apparel retail, Pepperfry has removed the complete catalogue of apparels changing focus from fashion & lifestyle to only home & lifestyle category. In February this year it has also appointed Kashyap Vadapalli (ex-eBay) as its CMO.

Fresh funds infused in Pepperfry are expected to be deployed for increasing fulfilment centres in Kolkata, Bangalore and Chennai. It has centres in Jodhpur, Mumbai and Delhi. As per the company, its current user base is over 7 lakh unique visitors on a monthly basis. Leading categories contributing to the pepperfry revenues are home & furnishing (40-45 percent) and jewellery (30 percent). It crossed Rs 100 crores GMV in January 2013.

The platform competes with other marketplaces like Shopclues, Tradus, Ebay, Snapdeal and also competes with niche category startups such as UrbanLadder, Roomstory among others.