Mumbai-based CRM and marketing automation platform, Hashtag Loyalty, has raised a seed round of funding from Ahimsa Capital.

Ahimsa Capital is a New York & Mumbai based early stage food and food-tech focused fund founded by entrepreneur Anish Malhotra.

While speaking about the investment, Anish said, “We are impressed by the technology first business that Hashtag Loyalty has built and the traction they have demonstrated. Loyalty is an industry rife with disruption, innovation, and customization. Hashtag has tremendous potential to scale within and beyond India.” 

”The team has a strong focus on building a valuable company with a balanced focus on economics, innovation, and scalability,” added Ludivine Noirel, Partner at Ahimsa Capital.

Hashtag Loyalty had earlier raised a pre-seed round in August 2016 from thinQbate, an incubator co-founded by Pranav Marwah, Vidur Marwah, and Arjun Madhavan. At the same time, Sauvik Banerjjee, Vice President Digital Initiatives Tata Industries, CTO of TataCLiQ & Advisory to Group Co's - ‎Tata Group joined as Advisor. 

thinQbate co-founder Pranav said, “We are still holding on to some of our stake in Hashtag Loyalty - just like the founders we believe that Hashtag Loyalty is just getting started, and we want to remain a part of the Hashtag story. We are excited about this new growth stage of the company.”

Founded by Dhruv Dewan, Karan Chechani and Krishi Fagwani in 2015, Hashtag Loyalty began as tablet-based loyalty solution. The company ditched the hardware model and completely pivoted to a digital loyalty solution in 2016. Today, Hashtag Loyalty has evolved from just a loyalty marketing solution to a complete CRM and marketing automation platform with multiple touch-points for offline businesses.

Technology has been at its forefront in the online marketplace revolution - offline has often lagged behind in utilizing technology to retain their customers. Hashtag Loyalty helps offline businesses collect first-party customer data via multiple touch-points that include loyalty, feedback or simply payments data. Also, the company helps businesses engage with their customers and optimize this engagement all without the business owner lifting a finger.

Hashtag Loyalty claims to have more than 750 outlets on its platform today, along with 1.1 million unique customers that have transacted over 2.2 million times on their platform. Businesses benefit with up to 25X ROI with the platform.

Karan talking about the latest round said, “This round of funding is a culmination of our single-minded focus on presenting true value to offline businesses. With the latest investment, we are working towards increasing the value proposition for businesses and expand our growth trajectory. We are really excited about the support we've received from the Ahimsa team. Their combined expertise building top-notch brands will help us take the next leap in our journey.”

Emphasizing on sales plans and growth moving forward Dhruv said, "In the past 6 months, we have worked hard to streamline our sales processes and scale with SME brands. With learnings from the past 3 years along with product advancements, we believe that we are ready to create a splash in the Enterprise market. In fact, we've already bagged a few large enterprise brands. In parallel, we have created a strong eco-system for growth with strategic partnerships in local markets including Tier-II cities.”

Besides this Hashtag Loyalty has initiated a POC with Atom Technologies, India’s leading omnichannel payment service, to launch Atom Rewards a coalition loyalty platform across its partner network. The initial POC will involve close to 250 outlets primarily across Mumbai and Pune.

Krishi signs off with Hashtag Loyalty's technology roadmap, "The next 6 months are very exciting as we're focussing heavily on expanding our technology offering - to a suite of products across the value-chain for offline businesses; including an AI-powered marketing assistant and social engagement platform. We've initiated the next step of disruption in this space to build the new internet of loyalty - connecting businesses, customers, and brands via the blockchain and smart contract technology. This will give the currently fragmented industry a seamless solution -  most importantly give customers control of their data."