Exclusive: Indiamart's Agarwal backs office products portal ProcMart

ProcMart, a procurement marketplace for office products until recently known as Instaproc, has raised an undisclosed amount in angel funding from Indiamart founder and CEO Dinesh Agarwal.

The Noida-based startup, run by Instant Procurement Service Pvt Ltd, will use the money to expand reach, improve the buyer-supplier network and introduce new features on its platform.

"The B2B procurement space has a lot of scope. I think I can help these businesses a lot… As an investor, I like to look at tech-oriented companies rather than execution-oriented companies," Agarwal told Techcircle.in.

Agarwal, an entrepreneur-turned-investor, had founded Indiamart (a B2B platform for small and medium enterprises) in 1996. In 2014, Indiamart launched its e-commerce marketplace for business goods and supplies called Tolexo.

Agarwal had earlier invested in medical app Curofy, crowdfunding platform Wishberry, marketing platform SilverPush, food-tech startup InnerChef and developer startup AppVirality, besides other tech startups.

ProcMart provides a platform where buyers can share their requirements and sellers can post quotes. It provides a marketplace for bulk procurement of office furniture and equipment.

ProcMart was started in April 2015 by Anish Popli, Pratik Potnis and Saheel Joshi. Popli is an alumnus of IIM Lucknow and has previously worked with Energo Engineering Projects. Potnis, a Pune University graduate, had previously worked with Cisco and had founded Quexa Systems. Joshi is an alumnus of Great Lakes Institute (Chennai) and was associated with Deloitte as a consultant before starting ProcMart.

In the B2B e-commerce space, Shotang.com last month raised $5 million (around Rs 33 crore) in Series A funding from Exfinity Venture Partners and Unitus Impact Livelihoods Fund.

Industrybuying.com, an online marketplace for industrial goods, recently received an undisclosed amount in angel funding from family members of the Chennai-based Murugappa and TVS groups. In September, it had secured Rs 60 crore ($9 million) in a Series B funding round from Kalaari Capital, existing investor SAIF Partners and Teruhide Sato's Beenext. It had raised $2 million from SAIF Partners in February.

Last month, Accel Partners seed-funded Bizongo, a B2B marketplace for industrial goods. MOGLILABS Pvt Ltd, which runs online marketplace for industrial tools Moglix, had raised pre-Series A funding from Accel Partners and Jungle Ventures.