Industrybuying.com, the SAIF Partners/Kalaari Capital-backed online business to business marketplace for enterprises, has raised Rs. 12 crore in venture debt from Trifecta Capital. This is the fourth investment from the VC firm, with a holding period of 36 months.
It seems that the company decided to go with debt financing to power it’s expansion plans without further dilution of equity — a norm extremely rare in India’s VC money flooded startup ecosystem, but beneficial for companies with strong revenue prospects. The money borrowed will also be utilized for talent acquisition and strengthening the supply chain.
Industrybuying.com is one of India’s largest platform for industrial e-commerce. It was founded by Rahul and Swati in with an aim to become India’s largest one stop provider of industrial supplies, online and offline. It hosts over 100+ brands, 2000+ suppliers and 3 lakh products online with customers like Motherson Sumi, Havells, RPG, Honeywell, Siemens, Tata Power,Escorts and many more.
Last year, the company raised $9 million in Series B round of funding from Kalaari Capital and others. Prior to that, in February 2015, the company raised $2 million in funding from SAIF Partners.
Swati Gupta, co-founder of the company, said,
We have recently appointed head of business, head of marketing and senior vice president of technology who will be joining on-board in a few weeks’ time. We are also looking at branding and positioning.
India’s industrial supplies market is hugely fragmented. However, a lot of startups have come up in this space, backed by substantial funding, in a bid to bring uniformity to this crucial industry segment.
While providing transparent prices, Industrybuying says it has the widest product selection, India wide services and 100% genuine quality. The platform currently lists over 50,000 products spanning across various enterprise and industry related categories.
There are currently about 1,500 to 2,000 suppliers registered on the platform and the company plans to sign on 10,000 more suppliers by the end of the current financial year.
It’s corporate customers base includes Motherson Sumi, Havells, RPG, Honeywell, Siemens, Tata Power, Escorts among others. The Industrial e-commerce market in India is currently nascent but is set for explosive growth in the years to come.
