B2B fashion portal Wholesalebox secures $2 mn

Wholesalebox.in, a Jaipur-based B2B wholesale e-commerce firm, has secured $2 million (Rs 13 crore) in a pre-Series A round from a group of angel and institutional investors. Manish Maheshwari, CEO of Network 18 Digital and Contrarian Vriddhi Fund are among the investors that participated in this round. Currently the startup caters to wholesalers in the unbranded fashion segment.

Investment bank Dexter Capital was the financial advisor for the transaction.

The startup will use the funds to scale technology and roll out operations in new markets, the company said in a statement. "We initially sold products sourced from local market of Jaipur where we have been able to win the confidence of suppliers and hence got large number of suppliers onboard. The main objective is to provide doorstep delivery to retailers along with better choice while reducing their landing cost by 25%," Rohit Dangayach, CEO and co-founder said in a statement.

Wholesalebox was established in 2015 by Dangayach, an IIT Roorkee alumnus and former executive at CarDekho where he set up the new and used car dealer and OEM businesses. Other co-founders are Chandan Agarwal (COO), a former investment banker at Citi; Madhur Bhaiya (VP of technology), an IIT Delhi alumnus and Rakesh Shekhawat (VP of technology), an alumnus of Sikkim Manipal University.

The startup offers retailers a platform to buy products such as apparel, fashion jewelry and home furnishing products directly at factory prices. Retailers can purchase items through Wholesalebox's app and website. The startup claims to have a catalogue of more than 50,000 products and more than 350 manufacturers and about 15,000 registered retailers on its platform.

Other players in the B2B space are Bizongo, which raised $3 million (around Rs 20 crore) in a Series A round of funding from IDG Ventures and existing investor Accel Partners. Bizongo procures and sells packaging materials such as boxes, containers, pouches, bags etc for industries such as food & hospitality, FMCG, retail & wholesale, and e-commerce.

In October, Moglix raised $4.2 million (Rs 28 crore) in Series A round of funding led by Accel Partners, along with Jungle Ventures and SeedPlus. The B2B ecommerce company specialises in procurement of industrial products for SMEs and manufacturers.

In September, e-commerce platform DealBerg, which sells office supplies acqui-hired online B2B platform WeAreGadgets, which procures gadgets such as laptops, tablets and smartphones by corporate houses in bulk.