Procurement Management Platform Procol Raises INR 51 Cr in Funding

• Software helps cut procurement costs upto 10%
• Works with a supplier network of 25,000+ for 70+ large enterprises
• Targeting a $500B goods procurement market in India

Procurement management software Procol has INR 51cr in funding from GMO Venture Partners, Alarko Ventures, Esas Ventures, FounderBank Capital, Anchorage Capital with participation from existing investors Blume Ventures, Beenext, Sequoia Surge. Angels who participated are Kunal Shah (CRED founder), Mars Shot Ventures (Razorpay Founders), Deb Deep Sengupta (former SAP India MD), Srinath (Zetwerks Founder), Ashish Dave (Mirae VC), Ankush Grover (Rebel Foods CEO), Aaryaman Vir Shah (Prophetic Ventures), Ankit Sethi (Fung Investments) etc.

Procol is India’s fastest-growing procurement technology company helping enterprises streamline their manual procurement processes across their fragmented SME supplier base. The capital raised will be used to build and enhance solutions to solve India’s procurement problems through Procol’s procurement software and B2B marketplace.

Procurement teams buy goods and services worth lakhs of crores in India but it all runs manually on phone calls and emails. Procol’s solutions streamline procurement processes with sourcing and purchasing workflows. The platform helps organizations to unlock industry-leading efficiency with amazing ROI. Enterprises can create sourcing events, discover and manage vendors and build deep visibility in their supply chain on easy-to-use web and mobile apps. Procol’s connected ecosystem of enterprise buyers and SMB sellers improves transparency, traceability, and ultimately delivers cost savings.

The software can help cut procurement costs upto 10%. With a supplier network of over 25,000 it has managed INR 7,500+ cr of procurement spends and works with over 70 large enterprises. Procol works with marquee clients including Dalmia Bharat, Havells, Mrs Bectors, Emami, Zetwerk, Tata BigBasket.

(L-R)  Gaurav Baheti and Sumit Mendiratta

Procol was founded in 2018 by Gaurav Baheti (ex-Google New York, Zomato, iSPIRT, Forbes Asia 30 under 30) and Sumit Mendiratta (ex-OYO, Zomato, VIT, Forbes Asia 30 under 30). The core team at Procol comes with rich experience in technology, procurement, supply chain and risk - coming from startups and large companies.

Gaurav Baheti, Founder and CEO of Procol, said, “Going from managing INR 70 Cr to 7000 Cr of procurement in 2 years, our journey at Procol is just getting started. We humbly believe that Indian businesses will grow multifold in the coming decade and our teams at Procol are dedicated to the mission to do so.”

“With a great team and great product, Procol has the solution to solve the long-lasting pain in India's $500 BN procurement market. It is our honor to be part of the journey”, added Ryu Muramatsu, Director & Founding Partner of GMO VenturePartners.

The market for procurement of goods and services in India is $500B.

e-Procurement Firm C1 India to Support Goa Govt to Automate the Entire Procurement Process

C1 India, a leading e-Procurement company, today announced that Government of Goa, via Info Tech Corporation of Goa Limited (ITG) has selected C1 to provide an e-Procurement platform for electronic Tendering and Auctions (Forward and Reverse).

ITG selected C1 India’s e-Procurement solution with an objective to augment their existing procurement process with end-to-end payment gateway integration to collect and refund EMD monies. This will produce efficiencies by reducing errors, making processes faster and by leading to cashless payments.

Hosted on Goa State Data Centre, the comprehensive procurement solution provides consistent superior functionality, better user-experience and secure, reliable & efficient delivery of services. Above all, the solution will help Government of Goa lead to cycle-time reduction, better control over all the transactions, upgraded vendors’ classification and strong 3600 reporting for optimal sourcing & compliance.

"C1 is committed to long-term value creation using trust, transparency, and integrity. We have spent two decades in this space and provide vital procurement solutions to the government and leading private & public sector organizations globally. We believe digitally transformative solutions positively impact business environments, make businesses agile, and transform businesses value proposition and organization” says Sanjay Puri, CEO, C1 India.

About C1 India

C1 India is the market leader in e-Procurement solutions and services. Its solutions incorporate industry best practices, guidelines and can be adapted to organizations’ unique requirements. Its diverse product portfolio makes it a pioneer in its vertical. It has close to two decades of focus and expertise in procurement related solutions. It continuously innovates by listening to customers and analysing markets.

40% Demand of e-Procurement comes from Govt Organisations: C1 India Survey

Private and government organizations have always procured goods, materials, and labour from vendors. Before e-procurement, organizations procured using simple methods that often resulted in corruption. When the internet became widespread e-procurement became commonplace. Today large organizations have established e-procurement portals that make procurement transparent and seamless. E-procurement today facilitates B2B and e-commerce transactions. Advances in software led to e-procurement picking up steam. With each advance, e-procurement became more thorough and precise.

The prestige of workers in the e-procurement industry has been tied to the state of the economy. During slumps, procurement was managed by clerks. When the economy was robust, procurement became vital to strategy and was managed by well-educated professionals. Today an e-procurement strategy is more vital than ever and believed to be a solution to weathering downturns.  

Industries Adopting E-procurement 

40% of demand for e-procurement comes from government organisations while 10% comes from manufacturing industries, 12% from hospitality businesses, 4% from IT and software companies, 3% from e-commerce companies, 20% from banking entities, 3% from FMCG players, 3% from the telecom industry, 4% from the healthcare sector, and 1% from other industries. 

E-procurement in Next 5 Years 

Over the next 5 years, e-procurement will present numerous opportunities to businesses. Businesses that exploit such opportunities will add value to their models. Procurement will deeply influence organization strategy and be a source of competitive advantage. Procurement managers will not only be accountable for lower costs but also innovation, agility, and supply certainty. 

Technologies like robotics, AI, and blockchain will make procurement more intelligent, efficient and transform it from a tactical differentiator to a strategic one. Data will be continuously cleansed and improved using machine learning techniques. This will leverage process outcomes and automatically identify and cure data anomalies in systems. Manual processes for high-volume and regular procurement tasks will be eliminated. Procurement will become seamless end-to-end. 

Procurement will happen over hyper-connected ecosystems which will become the standard. The process from sourcing to settlement will be unified and provide business agility and speed.   

New Technologies Impacting E-procurement 

Technology and digitalization are dramatically changing customer experiences and expectations. Procurement has evolved from an operative, administrative system to a strategic function. Redundant procurement tasks are being automated and C-suite leaders are being involved in decision making. Digital technologies are leading to product innovations that lead to superior market visibility and higher profits.

Last year organizations adopted cognitive procurement technologies like big data analytics, machine learning, natural language processing, artificial intelligence, and robotic process automation. In 2019 these technologies are being adopted more aggressively. Blockchain is being used to transform procurement by improving contract management, tracking, and payment processing.

Before e-procurement organizations communicated offline. Today e-procurement lets organizations work in a coordinated environment. Organizations today are likely to communicate in real-time using online platforms. Organizations use AI to source strategically by predicting demand and during advanced negotiation techniques to optimise their search for suppliers. 

Businesses and government organizations have realised that data is the fuel that provides deep insights. It helps make decisions that drive profits and ensure growth. Companies use emerging technologies that convert data into useful information. Such information improves purchasing power, spending management, and mitigates risk.