Popshop Live, a livestream shopping community, is coming off a Series A round with a $100 million valuation, a Thursday (July 8) press release said, and has added two new tech industry veterans to its fold.
Livestream shopping refers to the practice of making live videos where people promote products for a company or answer questions, among other activities. Customers can join the stream remotely and buy things if they’re so inclined. Popshop’s method allows for companies to set up their own events on its platform, and it comes replete with tools to help them grow, like inventory management, gamified features and stats for how the companies are doing.
Bangaly Kaba, who used to be the head of Growth with Instagram and Vice President of Product at Instacart, will now head up platform growth. The release said his job will entail launching new features and scaling demand.
Jason Droege, who was head of Uber Eats, will now oversee Popshop Live’s expansion. Droege’s job will come with responsibilities such as adding new retailers and sellers to the company’s roster.
In terms of the funding round, Benchmark led the round. TQ Ventures (Andrew Marks, Schuster Tanger, and Scooter Braun), Mantis VC (The Chainsmokers), Access Industries and SV Angel participated as well. Floodgate, Abstract Ventures and Long Journey Ventures were return investors.
Sellers on Popshop Live have usually reported better sales from the platform, credited to the new model of livestreaming.
“Livestream commerce is not just a trend in China and through the pandemic, it is an emerging multi-billion-dollar phenomenon whose growth is accelerating every day,” said Popshop Live board member Matt Cohler of Benchmark. Per Cohler, the CEO and Founder Dan Dan Li “has created something fundamentally new, unbounded, and powerful. Her tenacity and commitment to her vision of creating a marketplace for culture is singular.”
PYMNTS noted that livestream shopping has become trendy in China especially — enough so that new regulations had to be crafted.
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