Udaan adds $286 Mn in Series D round; Tencent invests $150 Mn

B2B e-commerce platform Udaan has been scaling up fast. The three-year-old venture powers about a million retailers with a portfolio of 1.5 million products across 500 brands. 

Such growth has also guzzled a lot of capital, and the firm requires to keep raising staggering funding rounds to have a longer stay on the growth path.

After raising $300 million last month, Udaan’s parent Trustroot Internet has raised another tranche worth around $286.6 million led by Tencent in its ongoing Series D round. 

According to share allotment returns filed by Trustroot Internet Pte in Singapore, the Chinese conglomerate has pumped in $150 million while Lightspeed opportunity Fund has invested $75 million in Udaan.

Cayman Island-based TIPL SPV has put in $40 million in the firm. The special purpose vehicle seems to be owned by Lightspeed since its managing members include Jeremy Liew and Ravi Mhatre who are partners at the Menlo park-based venture capital firm.

Footpath and Citi Venture have also contributed $8 million each. Footpath Ventures Spv I is another Cayman Island-based fund registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission of USA. 

Private equity firm Fifth Avenue picked up stake worth $ 3.5 million, and UAE based Acorn Heavy Industries put in around $2 million. 

Interestingly, Trustroot also restated its constitution to facilitate the $150 million investment it received from Tencent Cloud Europe B.V, a Tencent subsidiary registered in the Netherlands. 

The restated constitution included a clause to prevent the transfer of shares to 'Tencent Restricted Person'. The restricted person list includes Alibaba Group Holdings, Zhejiang Ant Micro Finance Services and One 97 Communication Limited (Paytm parent).

With this tranche, Udaan has raised around $585 million in its Series D round till date. A month ago, it raised about $300 million led by Altimeter Capital. Existing investors DST Global also invested $100 million while GGV Capital and Hillhouse Holdings also invested small cheques. 

Entrackr had exclusively reported Udaan's Series D round in August.

It's worth noting that previous media reports emphasised that Udaan would raise up to $500 million in its Series D round. However, the round already crossed $585 million. Moreover, it's still unknown whether the company would raise more capital or not in this round.

According to our back of the envelope estimate, Udaan's valuation has crossed $2.5 billion after the latest fund infusion. This is a jump of more than 2.5X  in its valuation from Series C round when it was valued $1 billion. 

For the unaware, Udaan is a marketplace that connects retailers to buy directly from large manufacturers across multiple categories such as staples, apparel, pharmacy, FMCG and electronics. The company also provides logistics and working capital requirements for retailers via – Hiveloop Capital.

The NBFC entity of Udaan claimed to disburse loans to more than 1 lakh businesses between Rs 10,000 to Rs 2 lakh until June 2019. 

Udaan competes with the likes of Jumbotail, Moglix, Metro Cash & Carry, Ninjacart, ShopKirana amongst a few others. Reliance could be its strong competitor, which is also slated to enter the wholesale procurement segment with Jio Prime Merchant.