IndiaMART Invests ~INR 133.5 Mn and Acquires 26.01% Stake in EasyEcom, An AI-driven Inventory and Warehouse Management Co.

L-R Himanshu Gupta- Co Founder & Co- CTO, Punit Gupta- Co Founder & CEO, Swati Jindal- Co Founder & CMO and VR Deepak- Co Founder & Co- CTO, EasyEcom

IndiaMART, the largest B2B marketplace of India, via its wholly owned subsidiary Tradezeal Online Private Limited, has made an investment of approximately INR 133.5 Million to acquire a 26.01% stake in EasyEcom (Edgewise Technologies Private Limited).

Edgewise Technologies under the brand name ‘EasyEcom’, is an AI driven omnichannel inventory & warehouse management Solutions Company that offers SaaS-based online commerce enablement solutions to merchants. Its flagship inventory and warehouse management solutions allow merchants to allocate, track and reconcile inventory across various online and offline sales channels. It also offers additional modules which automate other back office functions of merchants, such as shipping related payments reconciliation and returns reconciliation.

Speaking about the investment, Mr.Brijesh Kumar Agrawal, Co-Founder and Director, IndiaMART said "This transaction is a part of IndiaMART’s ongoing efforts to make commerce easy for Indian Merchants. Merchants across India have increasingly started to realize the importance of adopting various online sales channels, and the market in itself is large and fast-growing. EasyEcom’s solutions allow MSMEs to easily manage and sell products across various sales channels. We understand the tremendous potential of the company to cater to major ecommerce marketplaces. Moreover, this investment is aligned with IndiaMART's long-term vision to provide a holistic ecosystem for all business needs."

Adding to this, “Covid-19 transformed the entire retail market and accelerated the digital transformation of commerce. We rapidly ramped up the team during the covid lockdown 1 and grew massive 300% over the next 18 months. With this Series A funding of $2 million from IndiaMART, we are looking forward to becoming the best in terms of providing flawless, advanced and at the same time flexible omnichannel inventory & warehouse management solutions. Funds will be deployed to further strengthen our technology and invest in marketing & expansion activities. The participation of investors with a great vision and long term objectives such as IndiaMART will help us transition from being a start-up to a well-rounded market leader,” said Mr. Punit Gupta, CEO of EasyEcom.

Since its listing on BSE and NSE, the leading marketplace player IndiaMART is backing several MSMEs and SMEs in India to help them prosper with a 360 degree approach. It has already invested in softwares such as Vyapar, Bizom, Shipway, Legistify, Superprocure and Aerchain where all these investments are in line with IndiaMART’s vision. The investment in EasyEcom is also in line with IndiaMART’s long term objective of offering various Software as a Service (SaaS) solutions for businesses.

IndiaMART Forays into Fintech, Plans to Enable 3M Sellers on Its Platform

IndiaMART, India’s largest online marketplace has announced its entry in the payments space to enable over 3 million sellers on its platform. Addressing the bottleneck of trust deficit for the SMEs, the company has launched its buyer and seller protection program which will enable the sellers to remain free from the concern of payment risk, and assure the buyers that they will receive exactly the product or service they expect before the payment is made.

For any marketplace, effective payment facilitation is the most aligned service as it facilitates the purchase cycle. And with more than 14 million monthly business enquiries being generated from around 35 million registered buyers, it made sense for the company to offer a service that can help buyers and sellers to safeguard their business deals.

Dinesh Agarwal, Founder & CEO of IndiaMART said, “Bottlenecks like trust deficit & lack of credit continue to hold back the growth potential of our SMEs. Being at the convergence of e-commerce, payments and finance we have a larger plan to address these areas and this is the first step under the umbrella of initiatives like escrow services, payment gateway, invoicing and receivables management and SME financing. There are more than 50 million SMEs in India and our vision is to enable ease of doing business for them. With this buyer & seller protection program, we are taking our first step in that direction.”

The company launched the pilot project in January 2017 and has seen a week-on-week growth of 100%. More than 10,000 buyers and suppliers have already registered for it. The company has partnered with ICICI Bank for providing RBI approved escrow account management service.

One of the earliest adopters of IndiaMART Seller Protection Program, Vivek Kumar Mishra
Owner of Gargi Sports Enterprises, Delhi said, “With IndiaMART’s Seller Protection Program, cross border transactions are not a worry for us anymore. With a considerable chunk of our revenues coming from Nepal, we no longer have to chase the buyers for payment since IndiaMART makes sure that the payment is received in time.”

“I wanted to buy Kota stones. I contacted a few sellers through IndiaMART & closed the deal with one of them. But, everything got stuck when it came down to payments. The seller wanted the money in advance but, I wasn't sure if the material will come with the right specifications. There was lack of trust & credibility in this situation. That's when I reached out to IndiaMART and got to know about their buyer protection program. I tried it and my money was transferred to the seller only after I was satisfied with the product. This escrow service surely helps build confidence among the buyer & the seller. Now I can trade without any worries across India,” said Prashant Dongare of SplashJet Print Technologies, Nagpur who has benefitted from IndiaMART Buyer Protection Program.

IndiaMART Ropes in Amarinder Dhaliwal as Chief Product Officer

IndiaMART, India’s largest online marketplace has appointed Amarinder S Dhaliwal, as its Chief Product Officer. In his current role at IndiaMART, Dhaliwal will work towards strengthening the user experience, creating a consumer centric brand and lead product innovation.

An IIM-Ahmedabad and IIT-Delhi alumnus, Amarinder comes with a rich experience of more than 20 years. Prior to joining IndiaMART, Amarinder was the Chief Operating Officer (COO) of Micromax YU, where he created and launched YU as an innovative mobile brand. He has also had an entrepreneurial stint as the co-founder and CEO for private label e-tailer DoneByNone.com. Apart from internet and e-commerce, Dhaliwal’s experience spans across media businesses, finance and investment banking in companies like Times Internet, World Wide Media, Powergen PLC and SBI Capital.

“We are excited to have Amarinder on our team. With his entrepreneurial and intrapreneurial experience, Amarinder will spearhead the product innovations and development at IndiaMART. He is a key hire for us and we look forward to his leadership in ramping up our value proposition to cover all aspects impacting SMEs. He has successfully created and led highly engaging digital brands in the past and his expertise will help us in creating a globally competitive product experience for our users,” said Dinesh Agarwal, Founder & CEO, IndiaMART.

The B2B industry is at the juncture of internet revolution. In the past 20 years, IndiaMART has been leading this disruption. The company is looking at a robust expansion of its business and team in this fiscal.

‘’Amarinder's considerable expertise in the internet space will be an asset as IndiaMART creates an ecosystem, that’s at the intersection of commerce, payments and finance to serve millions of Indian SMEs that have come online. With his appointment, IndiaMART strengthens its ability to deliver best-in-class products to its growing user base," said Bhavani Rana, Partner, Amadeus Capital, investor of IndiaMART.

As a part of the top management, Amarinder has the responsibility of carrying ahead the organisation’s vision of ‘to make doing business easy’ by focusing on enhancing the product utility and user experience, his key forte.

On his appointment in the new role, Amarinder said, “Technology and internet are re-defining the B2B space. The B2B industry is moving at a fast pace and it comes with immense opportunities to innovate and grow. As internet becomes pervasive, the company is well positioned to leverage its understanding of SME needs as for a lot of SMEs their first brush with Internet was through IndiaMART. I am happy to join the strong leadership team of IndiaMART that has digitised millions of Indian businesses. The company’s vision to build a customer centric brand excites me the most about my role.”

IndiaMART is Indian online marketplace, connecting buyers with suppliers. The company offers a platform and tools to over 26 million buyers to search from over 33 million products and get connected with over 2.2 million reliable and competitive suppliers. Founded in 1996, the company’s mission is ‘to make doing business, easy’. The company has over 3500 employees located across 65+ offices in the country. Its existing investors include Intel Capital, Amadeus Capital, WestBridge Capital & Quona Capital.

Celerix Tech Gets $400K; ProcMart Raises Pre Series A Funding and Cleartrip Bags Fresh Round of Funds

Celerix Technologies has raised $400,000 as initial funding from early stage investor Bitkemy Ventures; ProcMart — a B2B marketplace startup with a corporate centric sourcing approach — has raised pre series A undisclosed funding and Cleartrip has raised an undisclosed amount in a fresh round of funding.

Fintech Startup Celerix Raises $400K from Bitkemy Ventures

Bengaluru-based financial technology (or fintech) startup Celerix Technologies has raised $400,000 as initial funding from early stage investor Bitkemy Ventures. Founded in 2014, Celerix is a fintech product and services company that caters mainly to the capital markets domain. It serves as  technology outsourcing partner for buy-side, sell-side firms, investment banks, exchange operators, brokerages and hedge funds.

The raised funding will be used for expanding the team. The investment by Bitkemy is the first external funding round raised by the startup, which was previously bootstrapped. “With further induction of funds, we want to strengthen our team and maybe establish a sales office in Mumbai,” Celerix Founder, Nagesh Kodavali said. The company is also eyeing overseas expansion, for which Singapore is the most likely option due to its recognition as a financial hub in Asia.

ProcMart Raises Pre Series A Funding from IndiaMART

ProcMart — a B2B marketplace startup with a corporate centric sourcing approach — has raised pre series A undisclosed funding from IndiaMART, a leading Indian B2B eCommerce space.  This is their second round of funding.

As per BS report, ProcMart would be investing their finances in creating a comprehensive, user friendly and easily scalable technology. The company would also be expanding their presence across all the Tier-1 cities in the coming few months.

ProcMart at present operates in NCR and Maharashtra region. They are already working with customers of LG, Religare, Harman International, Coca-Cola etc to fulfill their requirements.

Cleartrip Bags Fresh Round of Funds from Existing Investors

Online travel agency Cleartrip has raised an undisclosed amount in a fresh round of funding from existing investors US-based Concur Technologies and Gund Investment, among others, as per LiveMint report.

The company declined to specify the funding amount. Cleartrip has raised $75 million so far. The firm has also launched a segment called ‘Local‘ on its app. With four sub-categories- events, fitness, food and adventure, it will help consumers to book places in the city ranging from food joints to yoga classes and adventure sports like Dirt Biking. Activities as a separate segment was launched in the middle of 2015, it is only now that the company has divided it into four categories.

Cleartrip claims to be earning a margin of 15-20% from its hotel and activities businesses and a margin of 5-6% from the flights business.

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