B2B Marketplace Bijnis Secures $30 Mn To Help Manufacturers Go Digital

New Delhi-based B2B marketplace Bijnis which aims to digitise factories and connect them to retailers, has raised $30 Mn (about INR 220 Cr) in a Series B round led by Westbridge Capital. The round also saw participation from existing investors InfoEdge, Matrix Partners India, Sequoia Capital India, and Waterbridge Ventures.

The startup will primarily use the funds to expand its base of manufacturers on the platform from the existing 5K manufacturers and 100K retailers.

Founded in 2014 by Chaitanya Rathi, Shubham Agarwal, Siddharth Rastogi, Siddharth Vij, Bijnis connects manufacturers and retailers in the fashion, lifestyle and other categories and also offers third-party payments and logistics solutions.

To support the unorganised manufacturing ecosystem, Bijnis also claims to have partnered with NASDAQ-listed Freshworks’ CRM platform Freshdesk, logistic solutions XpressBess, DTDC, BlueDart, Shadowfax and conversational messaging platform Gupshup.

As manufacturers are dependent on wholesalers and intermediaries throughout their selling process, it creates a bottleneck for factory owners. Bijnis aims to remove traditional agents from the equation to help manufacturers improve their profits, it also helps them expand by discovering new customers and building a digital presence so that anyone can find them online.

The B2B marketplace has previously raised $10 Mn (INR 63.9 Cr) in Series A round from Sequoia, Matrix Partners, WaterBridge Ventures and Info Edge. In March 2021, the startup also raised an undisclosed amount from Zomato’s Deepinder Goyal, PolicyBazaar’s Sarbvir Singh, Offbusiness’ Asish Mohapatra, Smile Group’s Manish Vij.

While Bijnis’ approach is more focused on digitising the unorganised manufacturing and factory marketplaces, in India, several initiatives from companies such as Amazon, that runs programmes such as Karigar, Saheli and Launchpad programmes focused on various SMB sectors, also help the B2B sectors scale.

Under its Samarth Initiative, Flipkart works closely with NGOs and government bodies to promote and encourage rural entrepreneurs, with a special focus on women-led enterprises, artisans and weavers. Flipkart claims to have around 100K MSME sellers on its platform.

Other domestic B2B supply chain players in the market include IndiaMart, Udaan, Geniemode, Fashinza, among others. According to IBEF, the manufacturing sector of India has the potential to reach $1 Tn by 2025.

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