YouTube Acquires Indian Social Commerce Startup Simsim
- ByStartupStory | July 20, 2021
Google’s YouTube has signed a pact to buy video-based social commerce startup SimSim as it looks to help discover and buy products from Indian retailers. The terms of the acquisitions were not disclosed. “As more and more shopping happens online, video has an important role in helping viewers discover new products and find expert advice they trust. Every day, people come to YouTube to compare products, watch reviews and find recommendations from their favorite creators. Today, we are taking another step to help viewers discover and buy products from local businesses: we have signed a definitive agreement to acquire simsim and expect to complete the transaction in the coming weeks,” said Gautam Anand, VP, YouTube, APAC in a blog.
“Online video will continue to grow as the primary way to find information, entertainment and connections in India,” Google said in its India blog. “With over 2,500 YouTube creators with over one million subscribers, and the success of YouTube Shorts, which we launched in India, we’re committed to growing the creator community by making it even easier for the new generation of mobile-first creators to get started.”
Started in July 2019 by Amit Bagaria, Kunal Suri and Saurabh Vashishtha, simsim helps small businesses transition to e-commerce through influencer-based videos in three Indian languages including Hindi, Tamil and Bengali. It counts Shunwei Capital and Accel Partners among its investors and has raised around $16 million so far. The company had raised $16 million in 2020. Google said this deal builds up on its ongoing investments in India that includes the $10 billion India Digitization Fund. Last year, the search giant had backed InMobi’s mobile-first content platform Glance, which owns short video platform Roposo, and VerSe Innovation, the parent company of news aggregator Dailyhunt and short-video platform Josh.
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