udaan, a B2B e-commerce platform, said on Wednesday it has raised $280 million in additional financing from its existing and new investors.

A press statement said existing investors in udaan — Lightspeed Venture Partners, DST Global, GGV Capital, Altimeter Capital and Tencent — participated in the funding exercise, in addition to new investors Octahedron Capital and Moonstone Capital. The additional financing exercise takes the overall funds raised by udaan till date to $1.15 billion.

The company will use the fresh funds to reach out to more small businesses across the country. It will seek to expand the selection of products and categories available on udaan, further the user experience, enhance the technology platform, expand its SME financing capabilities and reinforce its supply-chain infrastructure.

udaan has operations across categories including lifestyle, electronics, home and kitchen, staples, fruits and vegetables, FMCG, pharma, toys and general merchandise. It enables small manufacturers, farmers and brands to market and sell their products across the country, said the company statement. While doing so, it enables shopkeepers, kirana owners, restaurants, street vendors, chemists, offices, small factories, contractors etc. to source from a large selection of high-quality products at the best prices with the convenience of e-commerce, it added.

“Covid-19 has accelerated the already fast digital-led evolution of highly fragmented and unorganised Indian trade/retail industry. At the same time, the pandemic has also highlighted the unique structure of the Indian economy, with millions of kiranas and neighbourhoods stores becoming the lifeline of our country at the time of crisis. udaan is at the forefront of this uniquely Indian e-commerce opportunity, emerging in the last four years as one of the largest platforms in India while taking an India-first mobile-first approach to e-commerce,” co-founder Amod Malviya said.

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