Social commerce website to “Bharat’s Pinterest”- Following Trell on its multi-million journey

• ByStartupStory     |    November 20, 2021

“Our primary focus has always been on building the community that has helped us lay the foundation to the exponential growth we witnessed in recent times. Social commerce was a natural progression to our growth rather than a pivot. We have set a benchmark in the already raging industry that has helped accelerate our growth,” said the Co-founder and CEO of Trell.

In the past decade the use of social media sites such as Instagram and Facebook has increased massively, thus creating a community of social influencers. The surge in the use of social media platforms has led to a boom in the digital marketing paradigm. However, many of the international platforms engage with content that is usually in English and doesn’t offer a personalized touch.

In an attempt to break the language barrier and cater to the Indian audience, Trell was launched by a group of college students. A one of its kind social commerce platform, Trell allows content creators to provide regional content to the Indian audience while also endorsing products which can be bought on the company’s website. The app enables the users to also engage in various games and earn as they play.

Sewing the Social in Commerce

It is interesting to note that Trell was initially conceived to solve a personal problem but ended up being a notable social commerce platform. The founders of the startup were college students who usually spent a lot of time on the internet trying to connect with the category of entertainment that they could connect with but usually felt lost due to the westernized content.

The need to have a platform where individuals could access meaningful content in multiple regional languages under a single umbrella sparked the flames of ideation. The four college friends Pulkit Agarwal, Arun Lodhi, Prashant Sachan and Bimal Kartheek Rebba came together on a rainy day in Mumbai in 2017 to form the revolutionary ‘Bharat’s Pinterest’- Trell.

The co-founder of Trell, Pulkit Agarwal, reminisced, “We understood that most of the users don’t have an intuitive format in which they could express their experiences and knowledge about their own passions. This prompted the ideation process and we started to think of how we could bring a wide range of meaningful content in regional languages under a single umbrella.”

Making it a Class Apart

The social commerce segment is experiencing a concentration in the market as various alternative apps try to carve a niche for themselves. Trell started as a community which offered content creators a platform to garner attention and audience for themselves. However, with the rise of various other social engagement oriented startups like TikTok, the app had to come up with alternatives to set it apart.

To segregate itself from the crowd, the Mumbai based startup launched a ‘vlogging camera’ and the first ever ‘reaction video maker’ in its app. This allowed the community to create content with ease and was widely appreciated for its unique approach. Furthermore, with the onset of the global pandemic, the startup diversified its portfolio and introduced Trell Shop which allowed the consumer base to purchase products easily and efficiently.

The approach of constantly updating and innovating the platform proved to be a massive success for the founders as the audience named Trell as the “Bharat’s Pinterest”. Today, Trell is one of the largest lifestyle social commerce platforms with more than 45 million active users and 100% M-O-M growth on online transactions.

Funding and Achievements

The social commerce platform has raised an aggregate amount of $7.6 million through 6 successive rounds of funding. Some of the prominent investors backing this entity include KTB Network, WEH Ventures, BEENEXT, Fosun RZ Capital, Sequoia Capital India, Ruizheng Investment and Surge Ahead.

The company made headlines when it partnered up with Flying Cursor, a Mumbai-based digital agency, for handling its social media platform. The agency allowed Trell to scale up its presence in the Indian social commerce segment. Furthermore, the startup was felicitated with the “Best Technology Startup of the Year” award at the Times Business Awards, 2020.  

Foreseeing Future

While the lifestyle platform has come a far way since its inception in 2017, Trell still has a long journey to prepare for. Moving forward Trell aims to utilize the platform to educate its consumers about the products that surround them and enable them to make educated choices. Further, the company also aims to foster a platform for creators to find the right opportunities and enhance their lifestyle.

Talking about the detailed plan of action of the startup, Pulkit Agarwal stated, “We will continue to expand commerce with the inclusion of more brands and also add more lifestyle categories like apparel and homecare to our current offerings. On the product front, we are in the process of adding more creator-friendly tools for content creators and also enhancing our personalization algorithms to create a seamless experience for our users. At the organizational level, we have grown incredibly in the last year and will continue to onboard creative talent that supports us and believes in our vision to empower India digitally.”

With the social commerce segment rising at a compounded annual growth rate of 65%, Trell is likely to garner a major portion of the market through its innovative platform. However, the fierce competition from MNCs and international social media giants like Facebook might act as a hindrance for the local app. Regardless, the future for the Indian app seems bright as the social commerce sector experiences an increase in the audience.

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