When Anand Shahani and Mehak Sagar decided to get married four years ago, it was the harrowing experience of organising their own wedding which prompted them to launch WedMeGood. Realising the concept of a big fat Indian wedding market was here to stay, it made business sense for the young couple to start WedMeGood, a market place for all wedding-based products and services.

The highly unorganised and fragmented wedding market is going online. Young start-ups like WedMeGood and a host of others such as WeddingZ.in, WeddingPlz, Wedding Brigade, ShaadiSaga, and BollywoodShaadis, are all trying to get investors on board to fund the $40-billion category where an average of 10 million weddings take place annually with an average middle class family spending $20,000 on a wedding.

The range of wedding-based products and services is vast and varied — from venues, décor, astrologers, pandits and even detective services for background checks on the prospective couple.

Always in vogue

“Since coordinating our own wedding was a nightmare, we decided to enter the wedding business ourselves. Wedding as an industry can never go out of fashion. Having raised an angel round, we are now ready to raise between $3-4 million as part of Series A,” says Shahani.

For Alok Mittal, a lead investor in WedMeGood, from IAN (Indian Angel Network), investing in the wedding business was not a difficult choice. “Having been on the board of Bharat Matrimony, we understand the need for young couples to plan their own wedding instead of offloading the task on their parents. The wedding market is now led by having superior experiences which can add value to elements such as venue, décor and bridal wear. We have come as an angel investor and will be introducing VCs for the next round,” says Mittal. Last year WedMeGood raised ₹2.7 crore from IAN.

Mumbai-based WeddingZ.in has roped in women film directors in Bollywood, such as Zoya Akhtar and Reema Kagti among others to raise $1.5 million and is now looking forward for Series A funds this year. “Bollywood and weddings go hand in hand and this is what made some celebrities come on board. As the funding scenario gets more rational, we are getting ready for Series A, but it could take a while since the frenzy for funds is settling down,” says Sandeep Lodha, Founder.

A year-old wedding marketplace Wedding Brigade recently raised ₹4 crore in pre-series A fund-raising from Blume Ventures. “Investors believe in our business model since it can be scaled up with the right unit economics. We are adding value in terms of solving a problem by organising information with respect to prices of vendors and packages compared to the unorganised offline marriage market. Now, for the first time, we have raised our pre-series A,” says Sana Vohra, Founder and CEO, Wedding Brigade.

Delhi-based WeddingPlz is waiting to raise funds only after getting profitable. “We have been bootstrapped with founders’ money, but will raise funds only when we are making profits,” says Manas Wadhwa, Co-Founder and CEO, WeddingPlz.

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