Gonuts raises Rs 3.5 crore funding from Sweta Rau, 9Unicorns, others

Gonuts, a celebrity commerce platform, on Tuesday said it has raised Rs 3.5 crore in seed funding led by marquee investors, Sweta Rau and Archana Priyadarshini.

9Unicorns, AngelList, Lets Venture, Pankaj Chaddah (Zomato co-founder) Ramakant Sharma, (LivSpace co-founder), IIM Indore Alumni Fund, Harshal Morde (Morde Foods) and other marquee angels and founders also participated in this round, a statement said.

Founded by Vinamra Pandiya, Mayank Gupta and Joji George in March this year, GoNuts aims to bridge the gap between celebrities and their fans, and democratise talent to the Indian and expatriate Indian diaspora.

Gonuts has a long term vision of creating India's largest celebrity experience e-commerce platform. It has a portfolio of over 700 celebrities across categories like films, television, sports and music.

This includes names like Shankar Mahadevan, Hans Raj Hans, Shaan, Kailash Kher, Sukhbir, Talat Aziz, Shibani Kashyap, Hariharan, Sivamani, Shivin Narang, Jonty Rhodes, Sumeet Verma, Ranveer Brar Ashish Vidyarthi and Vicky Ratnani.

This gives users a diverse range of celebrities to choose from to convey personalised messages to their loved ones.

The plan is to strengthen market leadership and follow through on Gonuts' vision to be Asia's largest and most influential celebrity commerce platform, Gonuts founder Vinamra Pandiya said.

"We aim to on-board over 5,000 of the most influential and inspirational celebrities by the next financial year and be the unicorn out of India in this category for the rest of the world," Pandiya added.