B2B Ecommerce Unicorn Udaan Bags $280 Mn From Octahedron, Moonstone & Others

B2B ecommerce platform Udaan, on Wednesday (January 6), announced that it has raised $280 Mn in additional financing from new investors Octahedron Capital and Moonstone Capital, along with existing investors Lightspeed Venture Partners, DST Global, GGV Capital, Altimeter Capital, and Tencent.

Prior to this, Udaan raised $585 Mn from Tencent, Altimeter, Footpath Ventures, Hillhouse, GGV Capital and Citi Ventures. Existing investors Lightspeed Venture Partners and DST Global had also participated in the round. The company has raised up to $1.15 Bn till date across multiple funding rounds.

The company is looking to deploy the latest fund towards continued market creation of B2B ecommerce in India and digitise more small businesses across the country. It will focus on expansion of products and categories available on Udaan, increasing user experience, enhancing technology platforms and also expanding its SME financing capabilities, along with reinforcement of the supply-chain infrastructure.

Commenting on the same, Udaan’s cofounder Amod Malviya, said, “Participation of existing and new investors in this financing highlights the increasing recognition of capital markets of this unique nature of the Indian market, and the opportunity it offers. It also reflects the long-term truly transformative and fundamental value creation potential that udaan platform offers for the lives and businesses of Indian MSMEs, who are major job creators and form the backbone of our economy and the society.”

He further added that Covid-19 has accelerated the already fast digital-led evolution of highly fragmented and unorganised Indian trade/retail industry, with millions of kiranas and neighbourhood stores becoming the lifeline of our country at the time of crisis. This financing will enable the company to further take ecommerce to the depth and breadth of the country, with a “unique low-cost model for core middle India”.

Launched in 2016 by former Flipkart senior executives Sujeet Kumar, Vaibhav Gupta, and Malviya, Udaan connects small or medium-sized businesses (SMBs), manufacturers, wholesalers, traders, and retailers to sell goods and services to each other. It also offers credit facility to select small sellers. It currently functions across electronics, home and kitchen products, clothing, and footwear. In September 2018, Udaan became the fastest unicorn in the Indian startup ecosystem, but then Ola Electric broke that record in 2019.

The B2B retailer claims to have a network of over 25,000 sellers across India, connecting with over 3 Mn users across 900 cities in India. The company also claims to have more than 500 popular brand partners, which includes boAt,  Sandisk, HP, Giny & Jony, Raymond, Rajkamal, Sparx, Action, Siyaram and more.

The overall B2B ecommerce market size is expected to be around $700 Bn by 2020, according to a Confederation of Indian Industry and Deloitte report. Some of the major B2B players operating an online marketplace include Moglix, Bizongo, OfBusiness, Power2SME, Just Buy Live and more.