Hopscotch Technologies

May 8, 2014

Mergers & Acquisitions | 8 May 2014 Hopscotch Acquires Blume Ventures Backed SkoolShop by Tilak Devadiga   @Tilak Online baby products store, Hopscotch has acquired school supplies e-tailer SkoolShop, in a stock and cash deal. The deal would see angel investors like Google's Rajan Anandan and former Microsoft regional director Jaspreet Bindra cashing out while Blume will continue to remain a shareholder of the combined entity. The acquisition would help expand Hopscotch increase its customer base and also give it a larger vendor base. SkoolShop, an ecommerce site run by @Occasion Pvt. Ltd., was founded by Harvard Alumnis Satya Raghavan and Anusha Mahalingam in 2011. The company sells education and school related products including products such as course books, school bags, digital educational content, school apparels, art supply, among others. It had alliances with cartoon network, Fastrack, HCL MyEdu Tab, etc to get their products on board. In 2012, it had raised Series A round from @Blume and angel investors including Sunil Kalra, Srikant Shastri, Vikas Choudhary and Puneet Deora. Raghavan is leaving to further his entrepreneurial interests, while Mahalingam will join the Hopscotch leadership to help lead the business development function. As per reports the firm estimates to earn revenue of R25 Cr in FY15. Hopscotch had recently raised an undisclosed amount from Nisa Godrej, LionRock Capital, Skype co-founder Toivo Annus and Diapers CTO Wei Yan to boost its marketing efforts and to improve its technology platform. It had earlier in 2012, raised seed investment from unknown investors. Founded by two former Diapers.com executives, Rahul Anand and Lisa Kennedy in 2012, Hopscotch is a boutique e-commerce startup which sells products for infants and kids. Headquartered in Mumbai with an office in New York, it offers product from a current list of 400-odd niche international and domestic brands. 0p. CRISIL Research Article Online Retail - Feb14 by   @Crisil_Research A Crisil Research report estimates that online retailing will become a R50,000 Cr industry by 2016. According to Crisil, the segment has been growing like gangbusters in India, with revenues surging from around Rs 1,500 crore in 2007-08 to an estimated R13,900 Cr in 2012-13 – or a CAGR of 56% . Yet it remains a nascent portion of the overall e-commerce segment in India where the travel business dominates with about two-thirds share. But the equation is changing fast enough to pose a threat to brick-and-mortar retailers - not just of books, music and electronics, but also apparel and grocery. Recently online book store BookAdda.com had disclosed the acquisition of KoolSkool, online retailer providing a one-stop-shop for school going children.