What is Udaan? Udaan Review, Features

Udaan is an Indian B2B e-commerce platform designed for small and medium-sized enterprises in India. Udaan was founded in 2016 by former Flipkart employees Amod Malviya, Sujeet Kumar and Vaibhav Gupta.

About the Founder

Udaan's three co-founders Sujeet Kumar, Vaibhav Gupta and Amod Malviya were previously Flipkart's president of operations, chief technology officer and vice president of business financing and analysis, respectively.

About Udaan

Udaan is a company that caters to small and medium-sized enterprises, connecting traders, wholesalers, retailers and manufacturers on a single platform through a mobile application. Udaan helps businesses discover customers, suppliers and products across different categories and connect directly with each other to get the best deal.

Udaan facilitates transactions through secure payments and logistics, delivering goods to more than 500 cities in India and enabling direct pickup in more than 80 cities. It also provides escrow protection for buyers and sellers.

Udaan follows an asset-light model and currently operates in the fashion, electronics, staples and FMCG sectors, with plans to cover industrial products, fresh fruits and vegetables, and office supplies in the near future.

Udaan buys apparel, electronics, pharmaceuticals and fast-moving consumer goods directly from large manufacturers across multiple categories. Besides acting as a trading platform for retailers and wholesalers, it has started underwriting loans for these small businesses after obtaining a non-banking financial company (NBFC) license.

Financing

-In November 2016, Udaan also received a US$10 million Series A funding.

-In early 2018, Udaan announced that it had completed a $50 million Series B financing round, with investors including Lightspeed Venture Partners, an early-stage venture capital firm that had previously invested in the company, and Yuri Milner, Russia's most influential technology investor and entrepreneur. According to Indian media The Times of India, in this round of financing, Silicon Valley venture capital firm Lightspeed invested approximately $30-35 million, and the rest was funded by Yuri Milner.

-In September 2018, Udaan completed a $225 million Series C financing round led by DST Global and Lightspeed Venture Partners. According to foreign media reports, the injection of funds will make Udaan the fastest startup in India to become a unicorn.