Dolma Impact Fund, aprivate equity fund dedicated to investing in Nepal, has entered the Nepalie-commerce market with investment in the online shopping platform -- SastoDeal. 

The Dolma Impact Fundhad been investing in a number of ventures such in the  hydropower,pharmaceutical industries, healthcare and agriculture sectors.

According to the Fundofficials, they decided to invest in e-commerce seeing its great potential inthe country. 

Popular among the citydenizens, online shopping is expanding gradually in Nepal these days. 
The fund was attracted toward Sasto Deal due to its excellent growth in therecent months, it said. 
“If Sasto Deal can grow at 233% in the last quarter without us, imagine thefuture with Dolma's capital and contacts,” said ShabdaGyawali, seniorinvestment manager at Dolma.

Prajwal Tamrakar,marketing manager of the e-commerce website, stated: “We had been trying topartner with Dolma Fund for about a year and now it has become possible. Theagreement was so that the equity fund could assist Sasto Deal financially andstrategically.” 

He added: “Although itis not possible to reveal much details about the agreement, we are hopeful thatthis will assist the company grow in many ways, including facilities such asimproved packaging and shipping that we were trying to implement for a longtime.”

 Sasto Deal hascome a long way to become popular in Nepal, according to its founder AmunThapa. 

“In the initial years,most vendors and customers had little or no knowledge about online shopping. Weand other collaborators from the industry have educated the market aboute-commerce, and as a result, online shopping is a trending culture in Nepal,”said Thapa.

 The companyexpects that through partnership with an investing firm such as Dolma, it willbe able to expand e-commerce in the country by skill-generation and byattracting sellers to the online platform. 

A statement by SastoDeal read: “With Dolma's investment, the company will be able to expand itsproduct categories, acquire talent, strengthen core operations, empower morevendors and cater to customers in most parts of the country.”

As e-commerce platformssuch as Amazon and Alibaba have been very popular in the international market,Nepali citizens are also expected to opt for online shopping due to rapidtechnological advances in the city area. Besides, increasing use of informationand communication technologies in the rural parts of the country is expected totake e-commerce to the rural areas also.

Source: MyRepublica, 16^th June 2018