Ali Cloud Investments Fuels $100 Mn In E-distributor Just Buy Live

Gurugram-based Just Buy Live, an e-distributor that connects retailers to consumer brands, has raised $100 Mn Series B funding from Ali Cloud Investments, a Dubai-based investment firm.

The startup will use the recently raised funds for expansion into Indian operations as well as international markets. It will target markets that have high SME density and fragmented distribution.

“Just Buy Live is now ready for global expansion to every country and developing market that can benefit from this platform and we will move quickly to enter new markets with strong local partners,” said S.M. Ali, Chairman of Ali Cloud Investments.

Founded in February 2015 by Bharat Balachandran and Sahil Sani, e-distributor Just Buy Live empowers retailers to buy goods directly from brands. Using the app, retailers can avail a wide variety of offers and higher business margins. The app directly connects major brands across multiple categories to retailers in the country.

A retailer can access multiple products across various categories from multiple brands and can buy them 24X7. The order will get delivered to the preferred address.

Just Buy Live’s app can be used by shopkeepers with a varied magnitude of operations, ranging from small grocery vendors to supermarkets, chemists, mobile stores, electronic shops among others. The app hosts over 500K products from 2,500 brands across categories like food, drinks, personal care, auto, mobile, tech, home, fashion, toys, sports, stationery and others.

Apart from this, the e-distributor also operates an unsecured credit lending platform for SMEs called Udhaar to facilitate transactions on its portal. Udhaar is a structured credit mechanism aimed at providing working capital to small retailers.The company claims that it has over INR 100 Cr in line for credit lending.

Talking about the operations, Sahil Sani, CEO of Just Buy Live said, “Our India business is already matured and close to profitability and our tech is now scalable and robust enough to be opened up to the world.”

Prior to this in January 2016, the company raised $20Mn in its Series A round of funding from Alpha Capital Advisors. Alpha Capital is a Mumbai-based Investment Management firm headed by Vishal Ootam and co-founded by Vivek Anand PS.

(The development was reported by LiveMint)