1Bridge Acquires eSamudaay’s Technology Assets To Boost District Commerce

RubanBridge Pvt. Ltd, a district commerce platform which operates under the name 1Bridge, has acquired the technology assets of eSamudaay to build a district commerce stack for the Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC).

1Bridge also said it has raised an equity funding of INR 4 Cr from its current institutional investor C4D Partners, along with participation from Sudhanva Dhananjaya Family Office and other angel investors in a bridge round. The ruraltech startup said the bridge round comes ahead of its proposed Series A fundraise of INR 40 Cr.

In a statement, 1Bridge said agreement with eSamudaay is a step towards creating a district commerce system that is ready to work with ONDC. It involves a network of sellers integrated with logistics, making it easy to connect every district headquarters city with the smaller talukas and villages. 

eSamudaay has been an early partner of ONDC and has played a crucial role in facilitating the onboarding of sellers onto the network, particularly in markets such as Udupi, Meerut, and Mysore.

Ravinder Singh Mahori, the cofounder and Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of eSamudaay, has now taken on the role of CTO at 1Bridge. 

Commenting on the agreement, Madan Padaki, founder and CEO of 1Bridge, said that in its 7 years of operation, the startup has served over 2 Mn customers through a network of 21,000+ local entrepreneurs, reaching 18,000+ villages across 75 districts in South and Western India.

“With the experience of executing over 70 Mn commerce and last-mile delivery transactions in rural markets, we are now leveraging this expertise by acquiring the technology assets of eSamudaay to take digital commerce deeper into the districts. Our assisted commerce model built on ONDC rails will enable millions of new-to-digital buyers and sellers to experience the power of access, choice, and convenience that digital commerce brings,” Padaki said.

Launched in May 2016 by Padaki, Anil Kumar and M Chakrawarty, 1Bridge is a rural commerce platform that provides products and digital services at the doorsteps of rural consumers. 

In 2021, 1Bridge raised $2.5 Mn in a pre-Series A round led by C4D Partners and angel investor Prashanth Boccasam.

Meanwhile, since its launch in 2022, ONDC has been working on establishing open protocols for all aspects of digital commerce, allowing buyers and sellers to use any compatible application or platform to conduct transactions. It aims to break silos of multiple ecommerce platforms and unify them with a single, open network.

In July, ONDC announced that its daily retail orders crossed the 35,000 mark with Delhi-NCR and  Bengaluru contributing more than 11,000 and 7,000 orders, respectively. The platform was recording as much as 40% sales in Bengaluru, followed by other metro cities like Pune, Kolkata, Hyderabad.