Internet and telecommunications group SoftBank’s Vision Fund 2 has co-led a $330m funding round for ElasticRun, the India-based operator of a business-to-business (B2B) e-commerce platform, the latter has confirmed.
The round was co-led with investment banking firm Goldman Sachs’ Asset Management division and also featured internet group Prosus’s corporate venturing unit, Prosus Ventures, along with Chimera and InnoVen Capital.
The round valued the company at $1.5bn post-money and the announcement follows reports earlier this month that it had raised $300m in equity funding and $32m through a secondary share sale.
ElasticRun sells fast-moving consumer goods to small local businesses, connecting them with e-commerce companies, particularly in rural areas. It will use the funds to expand its rural network, with a view to doubling its customer base to 1 million local stores over the next year.
B2B marketplaces in India began to take off over the past decade as new companies came on the scene providing end-to-end fulfilment services.
While uptake was initially poor, it shot up in the year leading up to the covid-19 pandemic and then exploded as traditional distributors took a hit to their balance sheet and, consequently, their supply chain, allowing tech-enabled start-ups to fill the void.
India-based B2B grocery provider Direct raised money last month in a $38m round featuring internet company Info Edge, mobile game developer Akatsuki and news aggregator Gunosy’s strategic investment arm Gunosy Capital.
Prosus Ventures had previously co-led a $75m series D round for ElasticRun in April 2021 alongside Avataar Ventures at a $400m valuation, after having previously led its $40m series C in late 2019. It had already secured a total of $17.5m from investors including Kalaari Capital and Norwest Venture Partners.
Internet group Tencent and financial services firm Citi took part in a $280m series D round for another India-based B2B e-commerce marketplace, Udaan, in January 2021, at a valuation of $3.1bn to take its total funding to $865m.
Other recent rounds for B2B players in India include a $125m series C for construction material-focused Infra.Market in August 2021, a $325m series G for industrial goods marketplace OfBusiness in December and a $250m series F for industrial equipment supplier Moglix last month.
