B2B marketplace Udaan raises funding from Lightspeed

Business-to-business (B2B) marketplace Udaan.com has raised an early stage investment from Lightspeed Venture Partners, it said in a statement.

Techcircle could not ascertain the amount raised, but several media reports said the startup raised $10 million (Rs 66.5 crore).

Udaan, founded by former Flipkart employees Amod Malviya, Sujeet Kumar and Vaibhav Gupta, is operating in a pilot mode connecting manufacturers, wholesalers, retailers and traders, and expects to become fully operational in a few months. Currently, it is operating within two categories – mobile accessories and fashion products.

Prior to starting up, Malviya was the chief technology officer at Flipkart. Kumar headed Flipkart's WS Retail while Gupta served as senior vice president of finance at Flipkart. The founders have put in $1.5 million in the company as a part of its seed round.

"It is rare to have an opportunity to back an experienced team of founders like Sujeet, Amod and Vaibhav who have worked for several years at Flipkart and we are excited to be partnering with them," Bejul Somaia, managing director at Lightspeed India, told Techcircle.

Other firms that follow a market place model in the B2B space include Industrybuying, Bizongo, Tolexo and Power2SME.

Udaan will be the second firm set up by former Flipkart employees to raise Series A funding before an official launch. In July, Mukesh Bansal and Ankit Nagori, former Myntra and Flipkart executives, raised $15 million (Rs 99.7 crore) in funding from Accel Partners, IDG Ventures and Kalaari Capital.

Moglix, a B2B e-commerce company specialising in procurement of industrial products and run by MOGLILABS Pvt. Ltd, raised Rs 28 crore ($4.2 million) in a Series A round of funding led by Accel Partners, along with Jungle Ventures and SeedPlus in October.

Earlier this year, Kalaari Capital and SAIF Partners-backed Industrybuying.com raised 18 million (Rs 12 crore) in debt financing from venture debt provider Trifecta Capital.

In October, Bizongo raised an undisclosed amount in seed funding from Accel Partners.

In August, Mumbai-based B2B marketplace for industrial equipment Omnikart closed its operations due to a disagreement between its two co-founders on its growth strategy.