Kris Gopalakrishnan backs GoCoop.com to uplift the artisan and weaving community in rural India
GoCoop is an online marketplace for co-operatives and community-based weavers and artisans to connect with domestic and international buyers
Bangalore-bases social venture GoCoop Solutions and Services, which provides an online marketplace for co-operatives and community-based weavers and artisans, has closed an undisclosed sum in Series A funding from leading investors, including Infosys Co-founder Kris Gopalakrishnan and Saha Fund, besides existing investors.
GoCoop plans to utilise the funds to enhance its marketplace and expand its buyer and seller base.
“With the new investments, we will continue to develop and expand our supply chain and drive demand generation enabled by technology. We are focused on building a scalable and profitable enterprise which can generate significant social impact,” said CEO Siva Devireddy.
GoCoop is dedicated to socio-economic development of co-operatives and community-based organisations through technology innovation and intervention. It leverages technology to bridge the gap between buyers and co-operatives, thus effectively eliminating middlemen.
The startup ensures a fair price for artisans from over 250 co-operatives and high-quality products to its customers.
With an inventory-less model and cluster-based approach, the company has less than one per cent product returns.
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GoCoop has presence in over 40 craft clusters today and plans to expand to over 100 craft clusters across the country in the next 24 months. It claims to have processed over 5,000 orders, 40 per cent of which are international and includes orders from fashion boutiques, retailers, brands and apparel manufacturers.
GoCoop had earlier raised seed funding from Unitus Seed Fund and Indian Angel Network led by Naga Prakasam.
Currently, India has over 9 million artisans and many of them are organised as co-operatives and community-based organisations. Grappling with limited local reach, these artisans are often, heavily exploited by middlemen and traders resulting in low prices and unfair payment terms.
“I believe that GoCoop is fulfilling a large unmet, social market need with its disruptive business model and it matches my vision of using technology to sustainably solve problems and helping artisans and rural entrepreneurs by bringing their products to the global market,” said Gopalakrishnan.
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