B2B marketplace Moglix raises $23 mn in Series C round

Online business-to-business (B2B) industrial goods marketplace Moglix has raised $23 million (Rs 164 crore) in its Series C round led by existing investors Accel, Jungle Ventures and International Finance Corporation (IFC), the private-sector investment arm of the World Bank. 

Venture Highway, former Twitter and Google executive Shailesh Rao and venture debt firm InnoVen Capital also participated in this round, Moglix said in a statement.

With this round, the total amount raised by Moglix stands at $41 million.

Moglix plans to use the fresh capital to expand to newer regions, besides increasing its logistics network and supply chain across India. The company will also beef up its integrated digital supply chain technology solutions with data science and machine-learning capabilities.

“The funds will play a critical role in fuelling our expansion efforts by optimising efficiencies in our focus areas such as technology innovation, analytics and building a wide logistics infrastructure network,” said Rahul Garg, founder and CEO, Moglix.

Garg said there is a lot of scope for innovation in the B2B commerce space and the sectors Moglix operates in. “We are now focussed on our next phase of growth across diverse markets. We will continue to bring in new talent and strengthen our talent base,” he said.

Moglix, operated by Noida-based MOGLILABS Pvt. Ltd, was founded by Garg in August 2015. Prior to Moglix, Garg worked at Google’s Ad Exchange services division as head of Southeast Asia.

Following a B2B model, Moglix specialises in procurement of industrial products such as fasteners and industrial electricals, hardware, pneumatics and safety items.

The company operates across 10 centres in India and caters to both institutional customers (B2B) and individual customers (B2C). It claims to work with about 400 large manufacturing clients and more than 2.5 lakh small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). It also claims to have created a digital supply chain platform of 5,000 SMEs and big suppliers across 25 states in India.

In its Series B round in July last year, the company had raised $12 million from IFC and Silicon Valley-based venture capital fund Rocketship. Accel, Jungle Ventures, Shailesh Rao and Venture Highway had participated in the round.

Previously, the company had raised $4.2 million in its Series A round of funding led by Accel, along with Jungle Ventures and SeedPlus in October last year. In October 2015, it had secured https://www.techcircle.in/2015/10/30/moglix-gets-pre-series-a-funding-from-accel-partners-jungle-ventures/ pre-Series A funding from Accel and Jungle Ventures. Additionally, Moglix raised an undisclosed amount of funding from Ratan Tata in February 2016.

B2B funding deals

A number of e-commerce firms in the broader B2B segment have garnered investor interest in the past few months.

Bengaluru-based B2B agri-marketing platform Ninjacart raised Rs 250 crore (around $35 million at current exchange rates) in a Series B funding round led by US-based Accel and Switzerland-based agriculture investor Syngenta Ventures last week.

B2B e-commerce platform Udaan raised $225 million (Rs 1,593 crore) in its Series C round of funding in September this year.

In August, Bengaluru-based ShopX, a B2B e-commerce platform for small retailers, raised $35 million (Rs 240 crore) in a fresh funding round from Hong Kong-based Fung Holdings. 

In July, Lal10, an online marketplace that connects artisans and bulk buyers; fashion and lifestyle supply chain digitisation platform Wholesalebox; and online procurement portal for office supplies Kobster raised capital. Aahaa Stores, an online B2B store for office supplies, raised $2 million (around Rs 13.6 crore) in a fresh round of funding from UAE-based investment group Calega in the same month.

In May, Bizongo, a B2B marketplace for packaging materials, raised $22 million (Rs 146.7 crore) in a Series B round of funding from B Capital and International Finance Corporation (IFC) as well as existing investors Accel and IDG Ventures.

In April, Temasek’s venture debt arm InnoVen Capital committed another Rs 40 crore ($6.16 million) to Power2SME, an online buying hub for SMEs.