Office supplies e-store Aahaa raises $1M from YourNest, others

Aahaa, an e-store that specialises in indirect purchase of office supplies, has raised pre-Series A funding of about $1 million (Rs 6.73 crore) from a group of investors led by Gurgaon-based YourNest Angel Fund.

Aahaa will use the money raised to enhance technology infrastructure and hire employees, the startup said in a statement.

The Chennai-based startup, run by Aahaa Stores Pvt Ltd, was founded in 2013 by Asokan Sattanathan, Rajaraman Sundaresan and Harish Kannan. Sattanathan is the company's chairman while Sundaresan is the CEO and Kannan is the chief operating officer.

The portal allows customers to buy stationery, housekeeping material, repair and maintenance products, electronics, appliances, custom-made products, imported merchandise and corporate gifts.

It has about 50 customers including Wipro, Tata Consultancy Services, Ashok Leyland, Michelin, Titan, Karur Vysya Bank and Cholamandalam Finance.

The company claims it can reduce by 95 per cent the lifecycle of 'indirect' material purchases of clients.

Sattanathan said the company has helped its clients to consolidate their office supplies management and shorten purchase lead times, while providing an insight into their consumption patterns.

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

YourNest is an angel fund that has invested in start-ups like mycity4kids.com, Proof of Performance, Uniphore Software, nlpcaptcha.com, bookmycab.com, GolfLan, BetaOut and Rubique.com.