Y Combinator and Surge-backed Procol raises $5.5 Mn in a new round

B2B agricultural commodities buying platform Procol has raised fresh funds from new and existing investors. The Series A round has come after a gap of two years for the Gurugram-based startup which provides procurement software to enterprises.

The board at Procol has passed a special resolution to allot 1,547 pre-Series A compulsory convertible preference shares at issue price of Rs 277,806 per share to raise Rs 43 crore or $5.5 million, the company's regulatory filing with RoC shows.

Existing backers Surge Ventures, Blume Ventures have invested Rs 7.75 crore each while Beenext participated with Rs 6.19 crore. Clutch of new investors such as GMo Fintech and  Vistra ITCL has invested Rs 7.75 crore and Rs 2.5 crore respectively. More than a dozen investors including MarsShot Ventures, an early-stage focused fund set up by Razorpay executives, have put in the remaining amount.

Previously, the company had raised around $4 million from Sequoia’s Surge, Singapore-based Beenext and Blume Ventures in July 2020. Entrackr was first to report the development. It has raised close to $11 million to date including $1 million seed round in 2019 and $100K grant from Y Combinator in 2018. Zerodha’s Rainmatter also took part in the seed round.

The Series A round appears to be an ongoing one and the company may rake in more capital. According to Fintrackr’s estimates, the company has raised the fresh funds at a post-money valuation of $75 million.

Founded by Gaurav Baheti and Sumit Mendiratta, Procol is a mobile-based all-in-one procurement software for agriculture, logistics direct material et al. The company weeds out brokers from the chain and brings buyers, sellers, brokers and traders under its ecosystem. Bigbasket, Cremica, BlinkIt, Emami and 70 others are its clients who leverage a network of 25,000 suppliers present on Procol’s platform.

Procol is a four-year-old company but it’s yet to churn meaningful revenue. In FY21, the company’s revenue took a hit of 48% and stood at Rs 57 lakh whereas its losses jumped 3.6X to Rs 2.6 crore, as per Procol’s annual financial statement.