B2B marketplace Udaan bags $50 Mn Series B round from Lightspeed and Yuri Milner

Online B2B marketplace Udaan has secured a whopping $50 million in its second round of funding after a gap of 15 months from early stage & existing investor Lightspeed Venture Partners and Yuri Milner, one of Russia's most influential tech investor and entrepreneur.

The Delhi-based startup founded by ex-Flipsters has got about $30-35 million from Silicon Valley-headquartered Lightspeed, while rest of the proceeds has been infused by Milner through his investment arm Apoletto, reports TOI.

In November 2016, Udaan had raised $10 million in series A funding from Lightspeed India and Lightspeed US.

Launched in 2016 by Sujeet Kumar, Vaibhav Gupta, and Amod Malviya, Udaan currently connects manufacturers, wholesalers, traders, and retailers. It claims to deliver to 500 cities and execute pickups from 80 cities.

The firm further expects to clock Rs 100 crore in monthly sales. Besides, it also aims to reduce the fulfillment costs through technology.

At Udaan platform, retailers and manufacturers can grow their network by exploring each other business profile, catalog, build connections powered by payments and logistics facility.

B2B marketplaces and size of opportunity in India

Some notable startups in the B2B space include Tolexo, Bizongo, Power2SME, OfBusiness, Moglix, and Wydr. Notably, all have raised risk capital.

For instance, mobile-based B2B marketplace Wydr recently raised an undisclosed amount from its existing investors. Gurugram-based Power2SME, a B2B online buying club for small and medium enterprises, raised Series E round from Inventus Capital, Accel, Kalaari, and IFC along with Nandan Nilekani in September, last year.

A month later OfBusiness, an SME financing, and product fulfillment platform raised Rs 25 crore in debt funding from Kotak Mahindra Bank. Prior to that Moglix had raised $12 million Series B from IFC (International Finance Corporation), and others.

Apart from the local startups, global e-commerce player Amazon through its Indian arm also launched its B2B supply services for SMEs in India. Amazon archrival Walmart, which is in talks for a major investment in Indian e-commerce giant Flipkart launched its B2B marketplace in India in 2014.

According to a report by the Confederation of Indian Industry and Deloitte, India’s B2B e-commerce market potential was valued at $300 billion in 2014 and expected to reach $700 billion by 2020.