Ratan Tata-backed Moglix, a B2B e-commerce platform specialising in procurement of industrial products, has raised Rs 28 crore in Series A funding led by Accel Partners. Jungle Ventures along with SeedPlus also participated in the round. With this the company has set a revenue target of $100 million (Rs 670 crore) over the next three years.

The company had in February this year raised an undisclosed amount from Tata, who is also a special advisor in Jungle Ventures and Accel Partners.

With the new round, Moglix has also roped in Anurag Srivastava, Founding and Managing Partner of Jungle Ventures, on its advisory board. Anurag will work with Moglix on product management and devising technology strategy for large manufacturing houses in the automotive industry.

Moglix, which caters to over 20,000 SME buyers and 100 large manufacturing houses through their platforms, said it will use the funds to expand its operational footprint across major industrial hubs in the eastern and southern markets. It also plans to increase its SME customer base by over five times to 100,000 and large manufacturing buyers to 1,000+ in the next 18 months.

Moglix recently expanded its operations in the West with the launch of its Pune office to cater to manufacturing companies in Gujarat and Maharashtra. Rahul Garg, CEO & Founder, Moglix, told BusinessLine that the B2B segment in India presents a great opportunity in a $300-billion dollar organised and fragmented market. "We are working towards creating a platform where buying and selling is done efficiently in a transparent way. B2B procurement is waiting for a disruption."

He further added that besides industrial supplies, it is playing an important role in facilitating online convenience and enabling supply chain efficiencies in business purchasing. The company, he said, is witnessing rapid growth and has partnered with 1,500+ manufacturers and distributors in India, China and Taiwan.

Moglix currently has more than lakh SKUs listed on the platform and serves some of the largest auto, electrical and PSUs in the country including Lumax, IndiaForge and Indian Oil. Recently, Moglix became part of the SAP start-up studio programme and is working closely with SAP on driving digital acceleration within manufacturing companies.

Garg added, “Most manufacturing industries in India have remained low on technology adoption whether it is ERP, procurement, planning, inventory management, etc. The Make in India programme when combined with the digital initiatives in the country have great potential to play a transformative role in India’s manufacturing sector. We believe that technology can be a strong factor in propelling efficiency and scale for both procurement and sales of the organisations. We are working with many of these companies to fast forward them to the digital age where technology can enable them to do tasks 3-5X faster”.

Speaking on the investment, Subrata Mitra, Partner, Accel Partners said, “Currently medium and large enterprises procure from thousands of vendors, and the entire process is run on an ad-hoc basis. Moglix’s ability to induct technology into such a process is innovative and will lead to significant efficiencies. It’s also a large-scale issue, and if solved well can create a formidable business.

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