Business-to-business online marketplace Udaan is on course to become the fastest Indian startup to reach Unicorn status, soaring to the $1 billion valuation milestone in merely 26 months of registration. This is as per a report in the Economic Times.
Udaan is a network centric B2B trade platform, designed specifically for small & medium businesses in India. It brings traders, wholesalers, retailers and manufacturers in India on to a single platform. With real insights into active trends, and great B2B trade features, Udaan brings to its users the power of technology to scale & nurture their business.
Source: YourStory
The company, founded by three former senior executives of Flipkart (Amod Malviya, Sujeet kumar & Vaibhav Gupta) in 2016, is in advanced talks to raise $225 million from existing investors DST Global and Lightspeed Venture Partners’ global fund, according to two people familiar with the development.
Udaan’s business model of providing a B2B ecommerce platform for manufacturers to sell directly to shop owners and merchants is seeing increasing competition from the likes of Amazon Business, Metro Cash & Carry, Walmart and Alibaba. Reliance Industries, too, is expected to enter the segment.
“Udaan was planning to raise its next round of financing after December but started seeing interest from investors. Existing backers have decided to double down again on the company,” one of them said, adding that the Bengaluru-based startup is being valued at just over $1 billion in its latest fundraise.
Udaan in February secured about $50 million from Lightspeed and Apoletto Asia, the personal investment vehicle of DST Global’s Russian billionaire founder Yuri Milner, after raising $10 million two years earlier, also from Lightspeed. Its latest fundraise is expected to boost its February valuation by five times.
Online food-delivery platform Swiggy, messaging app Hike, and advertising platform InMobi all took about four years to be valued at more than $1 billion. Paytm Mall became a Unicorn in about 14 months, but it had the benefit of being spun out from its parent company with a brand and business already established.
Udaan cofounder Sujeet Kumar and DST Global did not immediately reply to emails on the matter. Lightspeed India’s managing director Bejul Somaia confirmed the investment but declined to comment on the specifics.
The market for B2B ecommerce is estimated by industry to reach $700 billion by 2020, much higher than the $50-100 billion estimate for consumer-facing online retail in the same period.
