B2B Unicorn Udaan Receives Over $80 Mn In Funding From Parent Entity Trustroot

Following the $225 Mn Series C funding round of B2B marketplace Udaan in September 2018, the B2B online marketplace has received a total of around $81.8 Mn in multiple equity rounds led by Udaan’s Singapore-based parent entity Trustroot Internet Private Limited. 

The latest infusion of INR 72 Cr (around $10 Mn) from Trustroot came on August 28, according to the company filings accessed by Inc42. In return for this paid capital, Trustroot acquired 1 Lakhs shares in Udaan, at the premium of INR 7.1K. This is in addition to the earlier acquired 7.5 Lakh shares as a part of the past five infusions made by the Singapore-based entity. 

Moreover, Trustroot has raised about $300 Mn from Altimeter Capital, DST Global, and Lightspeed Venture Partner in its ongoing Series D round, according to a media report. Further, Footpath Ventures, GGV Capital and Hillhouse Holdings among others participated in this round. 

An Inc42 query sent to Udaan did not elicit a response till the time of publication.

Earlier in July, Udaan was raising around $500 Mn in a fresh funding round led by Lightspeed Venture Partners and DST Global. Other investors such as Hillhouse Capital and Altimeter Capital were also said to be participating in this round. 

In September 2018, the company had raised a $225 Mn funding round from DST Global and Lightspeed Venture Partners’ global fund. Prior to this, Udaan has raised a $50 Mn Series B round from Lightspeed in February 2018 and a $10 Mn Series A in 2016. 

Launched in 2016 by three former senior executives at Flipkart — Sujeet Kumar, Vaibhav Gupta, and Amod Malviya — Udaan runs a web platform connecting SMBs, manufacturers, wholesalers, traders, and retailers. The Bengaluru-based company also offers credit facility to select small sellers. It currently functions across electronics, home and kitchen products, clothing, and footwear.

At present, Udaan claims to have 20K sellers, over 15 Lakh products, 10 Lakh retailers and 500 brand partners on its platform. Some notable brand partners of Udaan include 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. 

Commenting on the B2B market size, Sujeet had earlier told Inc42, “The market opportunity is huge. We also account for more than 15-20% of the business of many of the sellers on the platform. And our average repeat transactions are seven times a month. These metrics are big validation that there’s a massive demand for our kind of end-to-end marketplace