Sidharth Kumar Jha 18BEE0007

LEAN STRATUP MANAGEMENT

MOOC 2

A successful start-up

Udaan India’s B2B marketplace

About:

UDAAN is buyer to buyer business application specifically made for small scale and medium scale
businesses. It provides a platform for wholesalers and retailer to sell their products to a wide range
of costumers or retailers for wholesale.

Details:

i) Date of foundation : 2016

ii) Founders : Amod Malviya, Sujeet Kumar, Vaibhav Gupta

iii) Operating Status: Active

iv) Funding Type: Venture Series

v) Legal name: Hiveloop Technology Private Limited

vi) Company Type: Private (For profit)

vii) Total funding Amount: $900M

viii) Number of investors: 11

Sidharth Kumar Jha 18BEE0007

Story of the startup:

Well the story is obviously a success story as UDAAN becomes a 2.8 billion dollar business venture
and inspiration for many. It is one of the startup companies that gaining popularity continuously
over time with increasing owners and merchants.

So a slight introduction about the cofounders is that all three were ex-Flipkart employees. As UDAAN
is a successful platform tells us that these are hardworking people and work on perfectly laid goals.

Sujith kumar worked for flipkart as stated before. He tried clearing UPSC exam because of his family
but was not successful. Hence after that he moves to IT capital Bangalore and starts working for
Flipkart.

Later he leaves the company and after gaining knowledge of e-commerce. He works with the other
two members to create an open platform. The task was very tough that many times he gave up on
the idea. Other founders experienced the same difficulties while building the website.

As soon as the platform is launched, an exponential growth was seen. Investors came up and
invested in the idea so capital was not a big problem.

They crated a platform from the supply chain point of view hence every retailer can see the
wholesale price, and every wholesaler can see the industry price which is a great idea.

Funding :

Currently, UDAAN market evaluation is $2.8 billion

UDAAN funding worked in series and was divided in 4

SERIES A started in November 2016 and was able to raise 10 million dollars. The main focus of this
series was light speed venture partners.

SERIES B started with the success of series A investing. It was able to raise a total of 200 million
dollars. Main investors were light speed venture partners, Yuri Miner, and lightspeed India Partners.

Series C started in October 2019. A total of 225 million dollars was raised in this series. The post-
money valuation resulted in nearly 1 billon dollars. The investors were lightspeed venture partners
and DST Global.

SERIES D money raising was also successful and was able to raise a total of 600 million dollars. The
post-money valuation was equal to 2.7 billion dollars.
Sidharth Kumar Jha 18BEE0007

Revenue Model of UDAAN :

The main revenue of the company works on the commission for the fees on merchants and
wholesalers.

As known, financing working capital is extremely difficult for end retailers. This ends in them
borrowing from local lenders whose interest rates are out of the world.

UDAAN here works as a loan for these retailers and the interest rates are very reasonable hence the
platform is gaining popularity continuously

By following the above model Udaan was able to fill its loan book for about 170 to 200 crores as
loans which will raise further in future because of the reasonable interest rates.

Currently Udaan has a valuation of $7.5 dollars which can be among top 10 startups in India.

Competitors of Udaan are mainly B2B companies that are working in the same industry.

i) Bizongo
ii) Priceza
iii) IndiaMart
iv) Olist
v) Ralali

Effect of the pandemic on UDAAN:

As thought the pandemic has affected everyone, yet we know that IT sector is one of the most hit
sector. For some it proved to be a golden opportunity whereas for some it really hit bad.

Udaan was also hit badly, hence to counter the effect Udaan fired many employees who were
working on contractual basis for the company. Yet the company provided a compensation of one
month and would be taken back once the situation seems fruitful.

Currently the company’s non-essential business sector is wholly closed as the lockdown persists. It
will open as the situation goes normal again gradually.

REFERENCES:

1. https://timesnext.com/success-story-b2b-startup-
udaan/#:~:text=Udaan%20was%20started%20by%20three,Vaibhav%2C%20Amod%2C%20an
d%20Sujeet.&text=This%20shows%20that%20all%20three,all%20the%20small%2Dtime%20
merchants.
2. https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/udaan/signals_and_news
3. https://tech.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/internet/udaan-sees-a-big-take-off-from-
small-cities/76803696
4. https://entrackr.com/2018/10/sourcing-logistics-lending-udaan-b2b/