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What is Udaan?
Udaan, founded in 2016, is an Indian business-to-business (B2B) e-commerce platform. It operates in the categories that include lifestyle, electronics, FMCG, pharma, home and kitchen, staples, fruits and vegetables, toys, and general merchandise, according to the company.
The company is valued at $3.1 billion, according to media reports. It counts Lightspeed Venture Partners, partners of DST Global, GGV Capital, Altimeter Capital and Tencent, Octahedron Capital, and Moonstone Capital among its investors. The company is headquartered in Bengaluru.
With an ambition to "transform the way trade is done in India leveraging technology", the company was founded by three former students of Indian Institute of Technology Delhi and Kharagpur, India's premier engineering institutions. All the three co-founders of the startup, Sujeet Kumar, Vaibhav Gupta, and Amod Malviya previously worked at India's e-commerce giant Flipkart. Malviya was heading technology at Flipkart and is known to have built Flipkart’s engineering platforms. Kumar was leading operations at Flipkart and built the logistics and supply-chain unit of Flipkart, Ekart. Gupta was responsible for Flipkart's business finance & analytics function.
With an ambition to "transform the way trade is done in India leveraging technology", the company was founded by three former students of Indian Institute of Technology Delhi and Kharagpur, India's premier engineering institutions. All the three co-founders of the startup, Sujeet Kumar, Vaibhav Gupta, and Amod Malviya previously worked at India's e-commerce giant Flipkart. Malviya was heading technology at Flipkart and is known to have built Flipkart’s engineering platforms. Kumar was leading operations at Flipkart and built the logistics and supply-chain unit of Flipkart, Ekart. Gupta was responsible for Flipkart's business finance & analytics function.
What does the company do?
The startup is a B2B e-commerce platform. A B2B platform is a one-stop-shop for all the requirements of manufacturers and traders and others involved in running a business. On Udaan, traders, wholesalers, retailers, and manufacturers can place orders from a wide range of good-quality products at competitive prices. The same traders, merchants can also market and sell their products on the platform. Udaan also helps in delivering the products to the buyers through udaanExpress. It also focuses on SME trade financing and provides financial products and services to users through its udaanCapital platform.
With the help of technology, Udaan is solving supply chain issues faced by small traders. The company is also helping India's small and medium businesses through its "unique India-fit low-cost business model by leveraging technology and bringing the benefits of e-commerce to them." The company says, "Udaan has built inclusive tech tools for Bharat, especially catering to the needs of brands, retailers, and manufacturers, providing them a level playing field to scale, trade, and grow businesses."
About Udaan
According to available data, the company caters to 15 million manufacturers, 25–30 million retailers, 10–12 million institutional businesses like offices, schools, HoReCa, etc. that account for over 60 million MSMEs in India. It has a registered user base of 3 million and sellers spread across 900 cities in India. It also claims to have over 1.7 million retailers, Kirana shops, farmers, among others, averaging over 4.5 million transactions per month.
The company aims to become a trusted partner of small traders and empower them financially, technologically, logistically to compete with giants of the tech world.
Latest Updates on Udaan
The Lightspeed Venture and Microsoft-backed unicorn had shipped 260 million products, catering to around 50 million orders in 2021 -- which was hugely impacted by the pandemic
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Udaan said its in-house expert team works closely with small manufacturers and trains them to run an e-commerce business
Sources aware of the development said around 300-350 people have been laid off from the company
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Business-to-business e-commerce firm raises capital from existing investor, was valued at $3.1 billion in January 2021
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Udaan also said it would be forced to procure Parle products from the biscuit major's existing distributor network
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India's largest business-to-business e-commerce platform said it has achieved positive unit economics and gearing up for an IPO