Retail tech startup Mobisy gets $3.5 mn from SIDBI's VC arm, others

Mobisy Technologies Pvt. Ltd, which operates supply chain automation platform Bizom and mobile marketplace app Distiman, has raised $3.5 million (around Rs 24 crore) in fresh capital.

The company said in a statement that SIDBI Venture Capital Ltd (SVCL) and existing investor Ojas Partners had led its second round of VC funding.

Triton Investment Advisors and a few high net worth individuals (HNIs) also participated in the round.

The Bengaluru-headquartered company said it will use the money for research & development purposes and to power expansion plans through an intensified sales and marketing push.

"We look forward to leveraging SVCL's industry experience to penetrate deeper into our market and solve sales and distribution problems for consumer goods companies and their partners in India and abroad,” said Lalit Bhise, Mobisy's co-founder and chief executive.

Early last year, Mobisy raised $382,000 (Rs 2.5 crore) in a bridge round from existing investor Ojas Ventures and two unnammed angel investors. 

In 2013, Mobisy Technologies had secured $300,000 in seed funding from Ojas Ventures.

“We believe that Mobisy’s real-time insight-driven solutions for our country’s consumer goods retail ecosystem have the potential to streamline what is currently a very high-touch, inefficient system," said Sajit Kumar, vice president of SVCL.

Launched in 2007 by Bhise, Mobisy Technologies started with a product called Mobitop, a platform for mobile app development. In 2009, the company decided to pivot to mobility enterprise solutions catering to the FMCG space.

Vasudeva Manjunath, Shree Kulkarni and Arun Narayanan joined as the company’s co-founders at a later stage.

Bizom
Bizom, launched in 2013, is a mobile-first platform for retail channels and teams to transact, collaborate and accelerate. It helps FMCG brands and their feet-on-the-street sales team digitise and render order and inventory management in real time, enabling better planning, setting targets and tracking field salesmen activity.

The HR automation tool offers features like attendance leave management and employee claims management.

Distiman

Launched in 2015, Distiman acts a virtual distributor for FMCG brands. It acts as a parallel channel even as retailers continue to source inventory through the traditional method. The mom-and-pop store owner, the end-user of the app, can order products based on his inventory status. The app empowers some of its retailers as sub-stockists, who act as a distributor to other stores in the locality.

The go-to market strategy of Distiman involves identifying markets where brands have distribution gaps.
Distiman makes margins from both FMCG brands as well sub-stockists.

Competitors in strife

As a software-as-a-service product for retail tech, Mobisy competes with the likes of Indore-based ShopKirana and Bangalore-based Shotang.

Mumbai-based Just Buy Live was also a competitor before shutting down recently, months after claiming to have raised $100 million in funding. 

VCCircle reported last week that Shotang was scaling down operations even as its co-founder has joined another firm. 

One the sales force automation front, Mobisy competes with the likes of Banglore-based Vymo.