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B2B trade platform Udaan has reportedly raised $225 million (Rs 1,575 crore) from existing investors DST Global and Lightspeed Venture Partners’ global fund. While on the onset this may seem like an usual fundraising affair, but this funding holds a special importance for Udaan.
With this fundraising round, Udaan has become the fastest Indian startup to achieve the unicorn tag. The Bengaluru based startup took barely two year to breach the $1 bn valuation mark.
Udaan and both its existing investors have refused to comment on this news report.
For all those who don’t know, DST Global is owned by Russian internet billionaire Yuri Milner. This is not the first time that Milner’s company has taken a bet on an Indian startup. In fact, DST Global is slowly emerging as a hotshot investor in the Indian startup ecosystem. With successful companies like Ola, Flipkart & Swiggy under its portfolio, Milner’s investment firm seems to have serious long term plans for India.
DST Global is evidently playing it safe by investing in startups that have already become a huge brand name.
What is Udaan all about?
Udaan is an online B2B trade platform dedicated to small and medium businesses. By bringing all the important stakeholders on one platform, Udaan’s aim is to nurture and propel SME’s towards high growth trajectory.
Traders, retailers, manufacturers and other stakeholders can buy/sell, connect and even avail business loans on this platform.
Udaan is the brainchild of three former senior executives of Flipkart – Sujeet Kumar, Amod Malviya and Vaibhav Gupta. The startup was incorporated in 2016 and become fully operational last year.
India is already witnessing the phenomenal Fintech boom that today is helping out in doling quick loans to SME’s. Although Udaan is not a Fintech startups per say, the startup’s aim to help SME’s certainly make its goals quite identical to Fintech players.
