Ratan Tata-backed Moglix valued at $1 bn in $120 million new financing round
17 May 2021
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Business-to-business marketplace Moglix has raised $120 million in a new financing round at a $1 billion valuation, becoming the 13th Indian start-up to attain unicorn status this year.
Moglix’s overall valuation rose to $1 billion after its latest series-E funding round, led by Falcon Edge Capital and Harvard Management Company (HMC). Existing investors Tiger Global, Sequoia Capital India and Venture Highway also participated in the latest round.
This brings Moglix’s total fund raising to date to $220 million.
Moglix was founded by IIT Kanpur graduate Rahul Garg, former Head of Advertising Exchange at Google Asia, six years ago. Moglix is engaged in procurement and supply of industrial products mainly used in manufacture, repair and operating, such as fasteners, electrical, hardware, pneumatics, and safety items among others.
“We started six years ago with a firm belief in the untapped potential of the Indian manufacturing sector. We had the trust of stalwarts like Ratan Tata, and a mission to enable the creation of a $1 trillion manufacturing economy in India. Today, as we enter the next stage of our evolution, we feel this financing milestone is a testimony to our journey of innovation and disruption,” said Rahul Garg, founder and chief executive of Moglix, in a statement.
Moglix currently serves over 500,000 small, medium-sized business and enterprises. It has established 3,000 manufacturing plants across India, Singapore, the UK and the UAE and counts manufacturing giants such as Hero MotoCorp, Vedanta, Tata Steel, Unilever and Air India and NTPC as its customers.
Moglix runs a supply chain network of 16,000 suppliers, over 35 warehouses and logistics infrastructure. With more than 500,000 SKUs on its platform, the startup claims to be the largest e-commerce platform for industrial goods in India.
Besides Moglix, other business-to-business e-commerce platforms such as Zetwerk and Infra.Market have also built for niche categories in the country in recent years.
“Moglix’s distinctive customer value proposition and ROI are visible in its outstanding customer and revenue retention numbers. We believe Moglix is now well poised to scale and we are thrilled to back the Company in the next phase of its growth,” said Navroz D. Udwadia, Co-Founder of Falcon Edge Capital, in a statement. He said the investment firm studied and tracked Moglix for years before writing its check.
India’s B2B e-commerce market is currently in the growing phase. According to a report by consultancy firm PwC, manufacturers still rely on offline (and largely unorganised) and indirect purchase for 80 per cent of their supply needs.
Moglix’s revenue more than tripled in the financial year ended March 2019 to Rs217 crore and the losses increased to a little over Rs48 crore, according to a Moneycontrol report in March 2021.
Indian start-ups have, in recent months, secured nearly two-dozen large-sized investments. Earlier on Monday, Pine Labs said it was raising $285 million at $3 billion valuation, up from $1 billion in early 2020. KKR said it had invested $95 million in Lenskart.
