The Successful Journey of Suchi Mukherjee: Founder & CEO of LimeRoad

Growing at a 30% compound annual growth rate, the ecommerce industry is certainly emerging as one of the most popular industries in India. Online marketplaces of varying niches, are rising and dominating the Indian market that was once known for its mom and pop stores. LimeRoad, one of the first women's social shopping sites, is currently among the most well-known shopping destinations of the Indians.

Dealing primarily in clothing and accessories for men, women, and children, at the end of 2017, LimeRoad claimed to have scaled 150% in terms of revenue, traffic, and more and had also successfully secured the 2nd spot in the online fashion vertical, as mentioned by Suchi Mukherjee.

Suchi Mukherjee is an Indian Entrepreneur, and the face behind the successful online shopping site, LimeRoad. Founded in 2012, Suchi Mukherjee is the Founder and CEO of LimeRoad, who founded the company with Ankush Mehra and Prashant Malik. While Malik has parted with the organisation, Mehra is still serving as the Co-founder and Director of A.M Marketplaces Pvt. Ltd., the parent company of LimeRoad, and Mukherjee is helming LimeRoad.

She aimed at creating the largest women's-only marketplace in South East Asia. She has been conferred with various awards owing to her contributions in ascending business and comprehending consumer technology. In 2011, Global Women's Forum voted her No. 1 among 15 "Rising Talent- global leaders under 40" via World Women's Forum.

So, without further ado, let's dive into the Life and Career of Suchi Mukherjee and the successful journey that Suchi experienced to date, which starts from her Early Life, and includes Suchi's Education, Career at LimeRoad, Awards won by Suchi Mukherjee & more.

Suchi Mukherjee - Biography

Suchi Mukherjee - Early Life and Education
Suchi Mukherjee - Career and Joblife
Suchi Mukherjee - The Birth of an Entrepreneur
Suchi Mukherjee - Personal Life
Suchi Mukherjee - Honors & Awards

Suchi Mukherjee - Early Life and Education

Suchi Mukherjee hailed from a middle-class family in Haryana, India. She was a bright student in her school and college. Suchi studied at St Stephen's College in Delhi, and was then enrolled in the University of Cambridge from where she received a Bachelor's degree in Economics with Maths. She is a Cambridge Commonwealth Trust Scholar & Fellow and a Chadburn Scholar. She holds a University record in Development Economics. Suchi is the Elected Member of Newnham Associates from the University of Cambridge in 2008.

Soon after she got admitted to The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), from where she obtained an MSc degree in Finance and Economics. She is also a British Chevening Scholar at LSE.

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Suchi Mukherjee - Career and Joblife

Suchi started working in a sector that was focused on Telecoms Media Technology (previously financial institutions) at Lehman Brothers Incorporation. She was a Senior Associate, Corporate Finance at the company and worked there for five years (July 1998 to June 2003).

Post that, she joined Virgin Media, where Suchi became the Director of Change & Business Development and worked for 2 years. She was a member of the Consumer Division Management Team of the firm. The company grossed a revenue of $2.5 billion under her leadership. She worked there from June 2003 to May 2005.

eBay Inc was the next company that she joined. Though eBay seems to have already lost the ecommerce war in India, as it looks like at least, it was previously among the ecommerce biggies. There she headed the Business Seller Programs and CS. She was a member of the UK Operating Management Team of the e-commerce portal and was prominently promoted in eBay, owing to her managerial and business skills. After 1 year, Suchi eventually emerged as the Director & Member of Executive Management Team at Skype, which was then a subsidiary of the Pierre Omidyar-founded eBay Inc company. She examined product and marketing, which included planning, product/UI design, payments, brand management, advertising channels, and more. She performed in the same job role from July 2007 to December 2008, before she was promoted again. Now, this time, it was GumTree, in which Suchi Mukherjee became the Managing Director & GM in January 2009. It was an eBay Inc company. She served at the company for over two years and left the job in August 2011. Under her leadership, the company escalated from No. 3 to No. 1 within a few years.

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Suchi Mukherjee - The Birth of an Entrepreneur

After performing extremely well in her career, and serving at numerous companies in over 5+ job roles, Suchi Mukherjee eventually thought of establishing her own startup that is focused on fashion and apparel for women. Suchi is currently serving as the Founder and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the e-commerce site, LimeRoad, which was established in 2012. However, what drove her to pursue the life of an entrepreneur is something really interesting.

The Idea Behind the Startup, LimeRoad

The startup story of LimeRoad was kickstarted out of a moment of utter frustration that Suchi Mukherjee experienced. This was just after her second child was born. Suchi was 39 then and on maternity leave. One day Suchi was flipping through a magazine when she suddenly glanced at a very attractive piece of jewellery. However, the jewellery was there in a very small store in Mumbai and it couldn't have reached her anytime soon. This made her realise 2 very important things that were central to the launch of LimeRoad:

• There wasn't any app/website/portal that helped pretty and interesting accessories to be discovered easily
• There wasn't any platform that allowed people to go through the lists of accessories that were manufactured to be sold outside India

Thus, the aim to create a unique platform where one can find beautiful and affordable accessories and lifestyle products in an easy-to-use interface, was the main idea that drove Suchi Mukherjee to launch LimeRoad, which is now counted among the best female-founded fashion brands in India. The idea was foolproof to the very brim because she was aware of the fact that India was the manufacturing hub for over 21% of the lifestyle products that are sold across the world. This made her realize that it would then be certainly delightful and profitable too to bring all the vendors in the lifestyle product category under a single roof.

“Here is an industry which is our strength. All I wanted to do was to use technology so that manufacturers, designers and sellers could flourish and users could source beautiful products, which currently they were not able to,” said Suchi.

Starting up of LimeRoad

Suchi found a serious need for a devoted females’ portal where they can find inexpensive accessories and products without any hassles. This is where she found an opportunity to grow rapidly in the market. She kept in mind the needs of the females and knew that the women like to examine other options before being a product. Her masterful understanding of the business led her to get to the root of the real issue of service and product.

Besides, there were plenty of nonidentified vendors who were not allowed to add their products to keep up with the quality. She worked on identifying the right balance between the demands and the supplies. Suchi flew back to India in 2011 with a vision of founding a global brand in the country, after she made all the arrangements, to work on this new startup.

Suchi recalled, "with a passion for driving change and innovation, which is also the core element of Limeroad’s culture, I got together with my co-founders to build something transformational.” Prashant Malik, who worked at Facebook and returned to India to start with something new, and Ankush Mehra, who headed the supply chain of Reliance Hypermarkets, were introduced to Suchi Mukherjee by her common friends when she was evaluating the market opportunity a year before setting up LimeRoad.

LimeRoad was visualised by Suchi Mukherjee and the other founders as the digital equivalent of the 16th century Grand Trunk Road that changed the face of trade in the Indian subcontinent.

Suchi Mukherjee as the Co-founder and CEO of LimeRoad

LimeRoad is hailed as one of the fastest-growing digital shopping platforms in India. It is currently a 50,000+ strong women's community. From being a startup to the LimeRoad we see today that competes with companies like Amazon, Flipkart, Myntra, Snapdeal, and more, Suchi Mukherjee's contributions are undoubtedly huge. It was also under the leadership of Suchi Mukherjee that LimeRoad, today, boasts of having over 50 million visitors.

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LimeRoad Challenges

Limeroad, just like any other startup, too had to face a whole lot of challenges when it started up. One of the major problems that the startup faced was the difficulty in finding the right people to build a solid team that could help the company get a blend of skill and a can-do attitude. Although LimeRoad could get over this challenge that was imposed, it tends to pop and test the company every now and then.

Getting the right infrastructure with a high-speed and reliable internet connection was also difficult. Suchi Mukherjee also had to confront numerous legal processes to register a company, which she had no previous experience in dealing with, especially in India.

One other challenge was to find the perfect work-life balance. Suchi felt that being a woman it was tough to be an entrepreneur because back then she also had huge familial commitments. However, one thing is certain Suchi was really supported by her family, which included her husband.

LimeRoad and its Team at Present

LimeRoad was founded as an online shopping platform in 2012 by Suchi Mukherjee, Ankush Mehra, and Prashant Malik. The company is currently headquartered in Gurugram, Haryana, India, where Suchi serves as the Co-Founder and CEO of the company.

It is a social-commerce platform primarily made for women with an improbable diameter of carefully selected retailers. It enables customers to discover the best lifestyle products across categories like apparel, accessories, home, and non-perishable food.

Bollywood Actor Neha Dhupia serves as the Art Director of LimeRoad. Dhupia was roped in by LimeRoad back in May 2014, who eventually picked up stakes in the company and is a regular employee of LimeRoad who draws a salary each month. Neha was originally the choice of LimeRoad because of her glam quotient that everyone is familiar with. Ahti Heinla, Founding Architect of Skype and Michel V Swaaji, Ex-Chairman of Skype, serves as the Advisors of LimeRoad and are among the Board of Advisors of the company. The investors of LimeRoad include Matrix Partners, Lightspeed Venture Partners, and Tiger Global. LimeRoad was last valued at $108.18 mn (around Rs 838.5 crore) after a funding round in October 2019.

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Suchi Mukherjee- Personal Life

She got married to her long-time boyfriend, Sandeep Kunte, Director Treasury at Barclays Bank. Sandeep and Suchi tied the knot in 2006 and the couple now bears two children, daughter Myra and son Aadit. Suchi first met Sandeep, her future husband, at St Stephen's College. Until now, no controversies arose against her. Her husband and family are known for being supportive throughout her life to date.

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Suchi Mukherjee - Honors & Awards

Both Suchi Mukherjee and the company, LimeRoad have been felicitated with numerous awards and accolades. Here's presenting a list of some of the most prominent ones:

• LimeRoad received the Coolest startup of the year award from Business Today in 2015
• Suchi won INFOCOM Women of the Year in 2015
• NDTV conferred her with the Unicorn Startup Award in 2016
• The Economic Times nominated her for the ET Startup Award in 2017

FAQs

Who is Suchi Mukherjee?

Suchi Mukherjee hails from Haryana, India, and is known as the Co-founder and CEO of LimeRoad, an Indian online marketplace owned by A.M Marketplaces Pvt. Ltd.

Where was Suchi Mukherjee born?

Suchi Mukherjee was born in Haryana, India.

Is Suchi Mukherjee married?

Yes, Suchi Mukherjee is married to Sandeep Kunte and has a son and a daughter.

What is LimeRoad?

LimeRoad is primarily known as a fashion ecommerce marketplace founded by Suchi Mukherjee, Prashant Malik, and Ankush Mehra, which was founded in 2012, and helps the users discover, shop, and share a wide array of fashion products and accessories that are above the mundane.

What is the valuation of LimeRoad?

LimeRoad was last valued at Rs 838.5 crore ($108.18 mn) in October 2019.