DealShare co-founders Vineet Rao and Sankar Bora step down: Report

Vineet Rao and Sankar Bora—the co-founders of social commerce platform DealShare—have stepped down from their respective roles of Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and Chief Operating Officer (COO), as per a report by The Economic Times.

The Bengaluru-based firm had announced in July that Vineet Rao would be stepping down from his role while continuing to be a board member and assisting the board in choosing a successor. Rao held an 11.7% stake in the firm as of March 2022, and Bora owned about 3.2%, as per data by market intelligence firm Tracxn.

The exit comes as the company is pivoting to a hybrid model—online and offline—from an online-only model.

DealShare did not respond to YourStory's queries.

Founded by Rao, Bora, Sourjyendu Medda, and Rajat Shikhar in 2018, DealShare follows a group-buying model, offering greater discounts on large purchases targeted at Tier II and Tier III customers. It has raised upwards of $390 million in funding from investors such as Tiger Global, Alpha Wave, and Unilever Ventures.

In 2022, the startup announced that it would invest Rs 500 crore over the next 2-3 years to support local brands from SMEs and its repertoire of private labels to grow their share in overall sales. According to reports, small kirana stores account for nearly 45% of DealShare’s customer base. 

DealShare joins a growing list of startups, which have tried and failed to scale the group-buying model in India, similar to the one pioneered by Pinduoduo in China. B2B commerce platform Udaan and value commerce platform Meesho tried a similar model and have pivoted since.