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Accel and Monashees Capital Back The Etsy For Brazil Elo7

11 October 2011

(TechCrunch) October 11, 2011 – Elo7, a marketplace for buying and selling handcrafted goods in Brazil, has received Series A funding from Accel Partners and Brazilian venture firm Monashees Capital.

Elo7 is similar in theory to Etsy, a U.S.-based marketplace for handicrafts goods (and an Accel-backed company as well). The site founded in 2008 and has grown to over 50 thousand registered artisans offering 1.2 million products to over 5 million visitors a month.

The startup, which has been bootstrapped to date, has over 40 million page views and over 2.7 unique visitors monthly. Besides buying or selling, users can connect with the craftsmen and artisans who produce or are interested in unique and quality artisanal goods.

Carlos Curioni, former VP of Operations of MercadoLibre.com and newly appointed CEO of Elo7 says that Brazil represents a strong market for a handicrafts marketplace because of the strength in the community of Brazilian artisans as well as the growing pace of e-commerce in the country.

Eric Acher, founding partner at Brazilian firm Monashees Capital sees potential for tremendous growth for Elo7 as a business. Monashees also invested in Brazil’s Groupon Peixe Urbano.

Accel General Partner Kevin Efrusy sees Brazil has a huge growth market and the firm has participated in a number of investments in the country recently, including online subscription e-commerce site Shoes4You. “We have come to realize that Brazilian consumers and small business stand out as savvy and aggressive adopters of new technologies,” he explains. Elo7, in particular, has a huge potential for growth as an e-commerce community, he says. “Strong communities, good teams, and good markets usually lead to good companies.” He adds that Accel will continue to make additional investments in the area.

The new capital will be used to grow the company, hire additional executives, upgrade the platform and strengthen the community.