DealShare, the e-commerce platform known for groceries and household essentials, is in talks to sell itself to either online pharmacy TrueMeds or seafood and meat retailer Captain Fresh, as the company searches for a way forward after years of decline.

Both discussions are ongoing, though nothing has been signed. If neither deal comes together, people familiar with the matter say DealShare could be forced to shut down entirely — the company is essentially down to two options: find a buyer or close shop. Talks with TrueMeds are said to be further along than those with Captain Fresh.

There isn’t much of a business left to acquire at this point. A deal with TrueMeds would likely function more as a transfer of cash and assets than an acquisition of a meaningful e-commerce operation. TrueMeds and DealShare share a common investor in WestBridge Capital, which could help move those talks along. Captain Fresh, for its part, has been expanding through acquisitions across fresh food and retail, and also has ties to DealShare through Matrix Partners India — now rebranded as Z47.

The pressure has been building for a while. In FY24, DealShare laid off more than 100 employees and shut down its B2B business as part of a restructuring push. Revenue kept falling anyway. Gross revenue from operations dropped 13.4 percent to Rs 432 crore in FY25, down from Rs 499 crore in FY24 and a peak of Rs 1,963 crore in FY23. Losses did shrink, from Rs 167 crore to Rs 87.65 crore over the same period, but the company has yet to file its FY26 results.

DealShare started out as a social commerce platform built around value pricing, hit unicorn status in January 2022, and has raised roughly $393 million from investors including Tiger Global, ADIA, Alpha Wave and Kora Investment. Its last major round was $45 million from ADIA, which came in shortly after the unicorn milestone at a $1.7 billion valuation.

Market Research Outlook: DealShare’s collapse from a Rs 1,963 crore peak to a forced sale shows social-commerce/value e-commerce models struggling to scale profitably in India. Distressed, investor-linked acquisitions (TrueMeds, Captain Fresh) are replacing organic growth as the exit path. Expect more unicorn-era shutdowns as funding discipline tightens.