IndiaMART, India’s largest online marketplace, announced today that it has raised a new round of financing led by Amadeus Capital with participation from Westbridge Capital, the Accion Frontier Inclusion Fund, managed by Quona Capital in addition to Intel Capital, the existing investor in the Company.
The Company will use the funds raised to further strengthen its leadership position in the B2B segment by scaling up Indiamart.com along with Tolexo.com and ultimately assist more of India’s entrepreneurs to launch businesses, restock their shelves, and connect with more business opportunities.
On the announcement of the Series C funding, Dinesh Agarwal, Founder and CEO, IndiaMART said, “As pioneers in this field, we understand that there lies a huge untapped opportunity with Indian MSMEs as well as big corporate buyers who consolidate their forces through IndiaMART. While businesses have been followers in adopting internet, more so in India, globally B2B is a much larger opportunity. The Indian B2B sector itself is set to grow by 2.5 times and touch $700 billion by 2020. Given the socio-political and environmental forces in the country we foresee larger strides being taken by MSMEs in the coming years. We are elated that we share the same synergies with our new investors.”
This is the first investment in an Indian company by Amadeus Capital Partners, the global technology investor that has a near twenty-year track record investing in sectors including communications, semiconductors, medical technology, and enterprise and infrastructure software.
Bhavani Rana, who led the investment on behalf of Amadeus Capital, commented, “Leading the Series C financing into IndiaMART, India’s most successful B2B classified listing marketplace, represents Amadeus Capital’s first direct investment in India. The investment fits Amadeus’ strategy of backing entrepreneurs benefiting from increased penetration of digital technology in emerging markets. As MSMEs in India increasingly come online, IndiaMART offers buyers a trusted platform and tools to search from over 30 million products and connect with reliable competitive suppliers. Through its subsidiary Tolexo, IndiaMART is able to utilise data to help consummate transactions within the platform. We are excited to be working with founders Dinesh and Brijesh as they grow and expand into new market segments.”
“IndiaMART is at the intersection of commerce, payments, and finance,” said Ganesh Rengaswamy, a Partner of Quona Capital, the investment manager of the Accion Frontier Inclusion Fund. “That strategic position will help lead to IndiaMART’s success. By providing much-needed commerce, financing and payment solutions to India’s MSMEs, IndiaMART can address the key bottlenecks that impair small businesses’ access to both resources and capital. Doing so will ultimately create the most comprehensive platform for India’s MSMEs, and a vital resource for the country’s entrepreneurs.”
“As a leading platform connecting and bringing millions of SMEs online, IndiaMART is well aligned with Intel’s efforts of enabling a Digital India – bringing the benefits of computing to help improve productivity, competitiveness and ease of doing business for the SME sector,” said Amit Behl, Investment Director, Intel Capital India. “We look forward to working with our new investor partners and IndiaMART’s management team as they continue to develop more innovative services for SMEs.”
