OfBusiness, an online platform for business-to-business commerce, has today announced that it has raised around Rs 75 crore in its latest funding round, led by Zodius Technology Opportunities Fund. The round also saw participation from its existing investor Matrix Partners.
With the funding raised by the company in the current round, the total money raised by the firm stands at Rs 110 crore. The 18 months old platform is aiming to strengthen its marketplace catering to small and medium enterprises.
Gautam Patel, MD at Zodius Technology Opportunities Fund, said,
We have been scoping for an investment in this space for one-and-half years. We wanted to invest in a company which is a high-touch model, where we found OfBusiness’ cluster model very interesting. Companies also have to serve two major requirements of merchants -an avenue for credit, and some professionalism in terms of on time delivery to the merchant, which we believe is their differentiator.
The company was founded in January last year by Asish Mohapatra, a former director at Matrix; Bhuvan Gupta, ex-vice president of engineering at Snapdeal; and former McKinsey partner Ruchi Kalra. It has expanded its operations to five states or 10 clusters, focusing on the manufacturing and construction sectors.
Currently, it is present in Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Delhi NCR, Maharashtra and Odisha. It is also planning to expand its presence to five more states, taking its presence to 30 clusters. It is also looking to catch up with rivals like Power2SME, which had a turnover of Rs 350 crore in FY16.
Asish Mohapatra, co-founder and Sales lead at OfBusiness, said:
Rather than a wide presence we have focused on 10 clusters. Both construction and manufacturing are big sectors, and we wanted to go deep into geographies we are in. We are focusing more on profitability, better working capital management, higher transaction sizes and focusing more on value from already acquired customers.
Going forward, the company is planning to set up a non-banking finance company (NBFC) subsidiary with Kalra in charge. The entity will map customer data, specific products for SMEs and also lend to them. Currently, OfBusiness has tied up with other NBFCs through which it provides loans to its customers.
