Glance buys Shop101 to expand into live e-commerce

Indian mobile content provider Glance InMobi Pte has agreed to acquire e-commerce startup Shop101 to venture into influencer-led shopping in the South Asian country.

Look, which turned into a unicorn in December in the wake of support from Alphabet Inc’s. Google and Peter Thiel’s Mithril Capital, pushes curated news and entertainment content onto phone lock screens and furthermore runs a short video application. It presently plans to get its content makers to work in tandem with Shop101’s commerce technology and production network framework, the startup said on Monday. It didn’t disclose the deals value.

Look is attempting to recreate the achievement that China’s ByteDance Ltd. furthermore, Kuaishou Technology have had with influencer-led e-commerce in their home market. While the Chinese giants utilize live webcasts with celebrities to sell billions of dollars in goods, the segment is yet to kick off in a meaningful way in India.