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Moglix, a global marketplace from for business and industrial supplies, has raised an undisclosed amount in its pre series A funding from Accel Partner and Jungle Ventures. The funds will be used to enhance the technology platform, build a deep merchant base across Asia as well as in marketing to customers, globally.
Moglix aims to become the online-first sales and marketing engine for Asian brands to sell into 100+ countries globally. Founded by Rahul Garg this August, the startup focuses on the $1 Tn+ worth business and industrial supplies market. These include electricals, lighting, hardware and tools broadly referred as engineering goods. Since its soft launch on 15 August, the startup has brought 200+ brands on board. These include Havells, Larsen and Toubro, C&S Electric, Anchor, Bajaj, Unbrako, Caparo, Ambika and Taparia.
Taking a cue from the boom in the B2C ecommerce industry, Moglix, aims to disrupt the global trade of industrial and business products, which still continues to be plagued by the traditional distribution and marketing channels. The platform enables to address the pain points in the industry by creating unique, sales and marketing engine that removes information asymmetry between suppliers and buyers to interact across multiple countries. Moglix’s end-to-end procurement marketplace is being built to provide product discovery, price negotiation, logistics and payment/escrow capabilities as it partners with manufacturers across India, China, Taiwan and other Asian countries.
Rahul, who earlier was Google Asia Pacific Head of Ads and Strategy, said, “The industrial products market from Asia is growing at a rapid pace. Engineering goods contribute 24% of the Indian exports worth $300 Bn+. Hence, this market has also been a strong focus area for Make In India initiatives. A large part of this trade remains offline and happens via traditional B2B channels, while the buyers are increasingly moving online. We believe we can play a significant role in bringing them together online.”
“Accel’s deep knowledge of the Indian and US ecommerce markets having led Flipkart and Etsy as well as their global presence will benefit Moglix immensely. On the other hand, Jungle which has been pioneer in enabling companies to expand across Asia / globally will help us to establish a strong pan-Asia presence. We are on a unique journey of creating the 1st ever global marketplace from South Asia in this category”, he added.
This very month, Accel Partners also invested an undisclosed amount of seed funding in another Mumbai-based B2B marketplace for industrial goods Bizongo. Prior to that, in September, New Delhi-based B2B online marketplace for industrial material, Industrybuying.com raised $9 Mn in Series B round of funding led by Kalaari Capital and its existing investor SAIF Partners. According to Walmart’s report, the B2B ecommerce market opportunity in India is currently valued at $300 Bn, which is expected to expand to $700 Bn by 2020. Other players in this segment include Tolexo, BazarA2Z, Alliedhunt, Walmart’s BestPriceWholesale.co.in and Amzon’s B2B portal Amazonbusiness.in.
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