Returning investor Falcon Edge leads $110 mn round in OfBusiness parent

Gurugram headquartered OFB Tech, which operates business-to-business marketplace OfBusiness, and small and medium enterprise (SME) focused lending platform Oxyzo, has raised $110 million (Rs 818.3 crore) in a growth funding round. 

The round, dubbed Series E, was led by returning investor Falcon Edge Capital, a statement said. Participants included returning investors Matrix Partners India, Creation Investments and Norwest Venture Partners. 

The round also saw ESOP liquidation worth $13 million by 73 employees and secondary transaction by 12 angel investors in the company, giving them an exit. 

The company will utilise the fresh capital to expand its supply chain, and make strategic investments and acquisitions to strengthen the same, the statement said. It will also invest in expanding its technology and regional operations.  

Founded in 2015 by Asish Mohapatra, Ruchi Kalra, Vasant Sridhar and Bhuvan Gupta, OfBusiness has raised $191.07 million across multiple rounds, according to data sourced from VCCEdge. The company had last raised $35.2 million in equity capital in September 2019. 

“In our mission of serving businesses who are core to nation-building, we have attained strong growth with profitability even through these uncertain periods. We have an unwavering belief in the potential of commerce and financing in the B2b landscape and our vision is to just keep doing more of what we have done so far,” Mohapatra, also the CEO of OfBusiness, said in the statement. 

The platform provides raw material procurement to SMEs with a GMV of $1.5 billion. GMV or gross merchandise value is the total value of sales on an ecommerce platform in a given period. The company also provides financing to business through its platform Oxyzo and claims to have a loan book of $200 million. The company’s marketing platform for businesses, Bidassist, claims to have 2.1 million unique users.  

OfBusiness has also expanded its business in 2020-21 to serve manufacturing sub-sectors, including heavy machinery, consumer goods, agri business and others. The company has raised $200 million in debt over the last year across 40 lending partners to tide over the pandemic.  

“OfBusiness stands alone today in the B2B supply chain terrain and in its provision of a value-added full-stack solution to SMEs,” Navroz Udwadia, partner at Falcon Edge Capital, said. “Most crucially, the company has been superbly stewarded through Covid and today runs both a profitable supply chain commerce business and a highly synergistic and also profitable supply chain financing business.”