Dot, offline-to-online (O2O) commerce and fintech platform founded by entrepreneur and PayU India’s ex co-founder Shailaz Nag today announced that it has raised an initial seed funding of around US$8 million. PayU, the payments and fintech business of Prosus, and Fosun RZ Capital led the seed funding round, which also saw participation from Info Edge Ventures and other well-known angel investors in the country. Dot is a technology start-up, providing novel digital transformation and commerce solutions to brick & mortar outlets, which serve 1.3 billion Indian customers with market size of US$ 1 trillion [1].

Dot aims to revolutionize the offline-to-online market space by combining its fintech capabilities with extensive customer engagement offerings and smart tech innovations. Dot, with its unique product offerings, is expected to have the first-mover advantage & will be well-positioned to capture the strong growth from the market.

“There is a huge potential in the offline-to-online commerce and fintech sector, offering immense opportunities for the right product. India has the second largest number of internet users in the world and a rapidly increasing smartphone user base. This, coupled with the recent digitisation push both from the government and the private sector is generating tremendous demand for digital transformation solutions by brick and mortar stores. I personally see a significant potential in this space, which has led to the conception of Dot,” said Shailaz Nag, founder, Dot.

Tej Kapoor, co-executive president of Fosun RZ Capital, said, “The Dot team has a deep and intrinsic understanding of the Indian fintech space and a proven history of creating and running successful companies, be it PayU or Ibibo. The current digital experience of offline merchants is broken at many levels and the engagement with customers is non-existent. Dot will change that and consequently create immense value.”

Sanjeev Bikhchandani, Founder and Executive Vice Chairman, Info Edge, said, “We believe that Dot has identified an important untapped market segment. It is founded by a stellar team and has the first-mover advantage, which is a winning combination.”

Dot is Shailaz Nag’s second stint as an entrepreneur after PayU. A doyen of the fintech space, he co-founded PayU India. Under him, India became the largest market for PayU’s global operations, accounting for more than 50% of its business. Shailaz helped PayU grow as the largest online payment solution provider and played a vital role in making it a profitable enterprise.

Dot is led by an experienced team, three ex-PayU employees - Shailaz Nag, Gyanesh Sharma & Anurag Gupta, all having proven expertise and knowledge of the fintech e-commerce space as well as experience in building and managing companies.