CityMall bucked the social commerce slump…or did it?

When CityMall began its journey in 2019, India’s social commerce scene was already crowded. The likes of DealShare, Meesho, and Shop101 had already popularised the model in India, pointing to the success of such platforms in China as proof that social commerce could take e-commerce beyond India’s metros and truly unlock scale.

While CityMall wasn’t first to the race, its timing couldn’t have been more perfect. With the Covid-19 pandemic pushing retail online, social commerce plays became investor darlings. Investors poured north of $2.1 billion during the 2020-2022 boomtown, according to data intelligence platform Tracxn. Three years on from its inception, CityMall, too, was flush with funding. It had raised a total of $112 million from the likes of Accel, Elevation Capital, and General Catalyst, securing a valuation of $315 million in the process.

The glory days of social commerce, however, were now just a speck in the rearview mirror. Meesho, which became the first social commerce unicorn in 2021 after raising a $300 million round led by SoftBank, was in the process of ditching its social commerce roots altogether. In the year ended March 2022 (FY22), Meesho's topline grew to Rs 3,232 crore, resulting in a loss of Rs 3,251 crore. Realising it had no obvious path to profitability, it had transitioned to a vertically integrated e-commerce platform by mid-2022.