Bengaluru resale start-up Circle raises Rs 25 crore led by Nexus to expand

Circle, a Bengaluru start-up that runs an online marketplace where people buy and sell used goods from one another, has raised Rs 25 crore in a seed funding round led by Nexus Venture Partners, according to reports published on October 13, 2026. Existing investors Titan Capital and Myntra co-founder Raveen Sastry also took part, and Delhivery chief operating officer Ajith Pai joined as an angel investor. The company says it will use the money to expand beyond Bengaluru and to improve its AI-based tools for pricing, product discovery and verification.

Buying second-hand from a stranger online has always had a trust problem in India. Buyers worry about fakes, hidden damage and sellers who vanish after payment; sellers worry about time-wasters and fraud. Classified-ad platforms connect the two sides but leave checking, payment and delivery to them. Circle's model tries to sit in the middle: it verifies goods at its Trust Hubs, handles logistics and uses software to suggest fair prices.

That approach costs more to run than a simple listings site, which is why the investors behind the round matter. The presence of a Myntra co-founder and a senior Delhivery executive points to backers who know online retail and delivery at scale, the two things a managed resale business must get right.

For founders, Circle's progress from a pre-seed round to a Rs 25 crore seed in about a year shows that investors are still willing to back consumer marketplaces when they can show early sales and repeat use.

The challenge now is expansion. A model built on physical verification hubs works in a dense city like Bengaluru; replicating it across other cities will test whether the economics hold.

Short-term: Circle will start moving into cities beyond Bengaluru and add verification and logistics capacity.

Long-term: If trusted resale works at scale, it could make buying second-hand goods online as routine as buying new ones, and keep more products in use for longer.

Who is affected: Urban buyers and sellers of used phones, electronics and household goods, other resale platforms, and early-stage investors in consumer internet.

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