Udaan gets $280 million funding boost, now valued at over $3 billion – Times of India

BENGALURU: Udaan, the business-to-business (B2B) e-commerce platform, has kick-started the new year with a fund-raise of $280 million, largely from its existing investors including China’s internet giant Tencent.
Venture funds Lightspeed Venture Partners, DST Global, GGV Capital and Altimeter Capital are existing investors who have also contributed to this round. There are two new investors — Octahedron Capital and Moonstone Capital.
Post-investment, Udaan is valued at a little over $3 billion, a person aware of the matter said. The company didn’t comment on the valuation. This is one of the largest additional funding rounds and comes as an extension of its last fund-raise of $585 million in 2019. The company has now raised a total of over $1 billion in capital.
Udaan will use the capital to double down on growth, which the pandemic has accelerated, and to invest in technology. The monthly gross merchandise value (GMV) now is around $200 million, said Sujeet Kumar, who co-founded the four-year-old startup with Amod Malviya and Vaibhav Gupta. All of them are former senior Flipkart executives.

“In terms of GMV, we surpassed pre-Covid-19 levels sometime back. But the quality of growth has also improved with better margins,” Kumar told TOI.
Udaan’s new funding comes at a time when Amazon, Walmart-owned Flipkart and Reliance are also scaling their B2B commerce operations given the increased digital adoption by SMEs and kiranas.
Bengaluru-based Udaan, which became the fastest to achieve Slot Terbaik unicorn status (valuation of $1 billion or more) in 2018, works with around 2,500 brands, including HUL, P&G, and ITC. The brands are largely in three areas — food (staples and fresh vegetables), non-food (electronics and fashion), and pharmaceuticals.
It has over 3 million users, including about 25,000 sellers, in 900 cities. Startups like Ninjacart, which is backed by Walmart and Flipkart, Moglix, Jumbotail and ShopX also operate in this space.
“Participation of existing and new investors in this financing highlights the increasing recognition of capital markets of this unique nature of the Indian market, and the opportunity it offers. It also reflects the long-term truly transformative and fundamental value creation potential that Udaan platform offers for the lives and businesses of Indian MSMEs, who are major job creators and form the backbone of our economy and the society,” said Malviya.
Udaan has also started lending to its merchants through its own NBFC arm.