Source: TechCrunch
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Gamification and social hooks have become cornerstones across every category of consumer apps these days, and today one that’s using these to build out a new e-commerce platform in Europe is announcing a seed round to give its growth a boost. Blidz — a social shopping app that offers big discounts (many items in categories like jewelry, clothes and gadgets sell for just $0.99) on goods based on how many people are coming together to buy them, and then presents users with a selection of games on top of that to unlock more deals — has picked up €6 million ($6.6 million at today’s rates) in a seed round of funding after seeing its early growth reach 50,000 monthly users.
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Pinduoduo’s fortunes and challenges are bookends worth contemplating with thinking about Blidz: The Chinese platform currently has a market cap of nearly $60 billion (it’s listed on Nasdaq in the U.S.) and nearly 870 million active buyers — although recent growth has been slowing on the back of more competition and the weaker performance of China’s economy overall. That speaks of a lot of potential for Blidz, but also some of the same growth issues longer term.
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