Accion Frontier Inclusion Fund Invests in IndiaMART

  • Working at the intersection of commerce and finance, IndiaMART makes it easier for India’s micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) to do business
  • IndiaMART plans to use the funds to scale Tolexo.com – India’s first transaction marketplace for business goods
  • It is also looking to expand its operations to cater to the sourcing and selling requirements of larger organizations
  • India’s MSMEs represent nearly 58 million businesses, create 150 million jobs, and account for 45% of the country’s industrial output

NEW DELHI, March 9, 2016: IndiaMART, India’s largest online marketplace, announced today that it has raised a new round of financing led by Amadeus Capital with participation from Westbridge Capital, the Accion Frontier Inclusion Fund, managed by Quona Capital in addition to Intel Capital, the existing investor in the Company. The Company will use the funds raised to further strengthen its leadership position in the B2B segment by scaling up Indiamart.com along with Tolexo.com and ultimately assist more of India’s entrepreneurs to launch businesses, restock their shelves, and connect with more business opportunities.

On the announcement of the Series C funding, Dinesh Agarwal, Founder and CEO, IndiaMART said, “As pioneers in this field, we understand that there lies a huge untapped opportunity with Indian MSMEs as well as big corporate buyers who consolidate their forces through IndiaMART. While businesses have been followers in adopting internet, more so in India, globally B2B is a much larger opportunity. The Indian B2B sector itself is set to grow by 2.5 times and touch $700 billion by 2020. Given the socio-political and environmental forces in the country we foresee larger strides being taken by MSMEs in the coming years. We are elated that we share the same synergies with our new investors.”

This is the first investment in an Indian company by Amadeus Capital Partners, the global technology investor that has a near twenty-year track record investing in sectors including communications, semiconductors, medical technology, and enterprise and infrastructure software.

Bhavani Rana, who led the investment on behalf of Amadeus Capital, commented, “Leading the Series C financing into IndiaMART, India’s most successful B2B classified listing marketplace, represents Amadeus Capital’s first direct investment in India. The investment fits Amadeus’ strategy of backing entrepreneurs benefiting from increased penetration of digital technology in emerging markets. As MSMEs in India increasingly come online, IndiaMART offers buyers a trusted platform and tools to search from over 30 million products and connect with reliable competitive suppliers. Through its subsidiary Tolexo, IndiaMART is able to utilise data to help consummate transactions within the platform. We are excited to be working with founders Dinesh and Brijesh as they grow and expand into new market segments.”

“We believe that IndiaMART has been instrumental in the growth of Indian MSMEs, by bringing them on the digital bandwagon and is now a leading marketplace in the B2B space. The IndiaMART founders have been impressive in their execution of the business and WestBridge looks forward to partnering with the company in this growth journey.” said Sandeep Singhal, a Managing Director of WestBridge Capital India Advisors Private Limited, Investment Advisor to WestBridge Capital Partners, LLC.

“IndiaMART is at the intersection of commerce, payments, and finance,” said Ganesh Rengaswamy, a Partner of Quona Capital, the investment manager of the Accion Frontier Inclusion Fund. “That strategic position will help lead to IndiaMART’s success. By providing much-needed commerce, financing and payment solutions to India’s MSMEs, IndiaMART can address the key bottlenecks that impair small businesses’ access to both resources and capital. Doing so will ultimately create the most comprehensive platform for India’s MSMEs, and a vital resource for the country’s entrepreneurs.”

“As a leading platform connecting and bringing millions of SMEs online, IndiaMART is well aligned with Intel’s efforts of enabling a Digital India – bringing the benefits of computing to help improve productivity, competitiveness and ease of doing business for the SME sector,” said Amit Behl, Investment Director, Intel Capital India. “We look forward to working with our new investor partners and IndiaMART’s management team as they continue to develop more innovative services for SMEs.”

About IndiaMART

IndiaMART offers a platform and tools to over 24 million buyers to search from over 30 million products and get connected with over 2.1 million reliable and competitive suppliers. Founded in 1996, the company’s mission is ‘to make doing business easy’. The company has over 3,000 employees located across nearly 60 offices in the country. In line with its mobile first strategy, IndiaMART’s platform receives over 63% of traffic on mobile and its app is among the top business apps across Android, iOS, Windows, and BlackBerry platforms. Leveraging the existing buyer and seller networks, IndiaMART launched Tolexo.com in 2014, an e-commerce platform for business goods and supplies that has already built a large collection of over 1 million products. More at http://www.indiamart.com/

Media Contact:
Sumit Bedi
+91 9560988481
sumit.bedi@indiamart.com

About Amadeus Capital

Amadeus Capital Partners is a global technology investor. Since its inception in 1997, the firm has raised over $1bn for investment and backed more than 100 companies in the software, mobile, internet, cyber security and medical technology sectors. The investment team is based in India, South Africa, Sweden, UK and USA, has deep experience in technology and invests in high-growth companies from early stage to pre-IPO. For more information, please visit http://www.amadeuscapital.com/

Media Contact:
Emma Thorpe
+447909974958
amadeus-advisors@amadeuscapital.com

About WestBridge Capital

WestBridge Crossover Fund seeks to partner with some of India’s most promising mid-sized companies run by outstanding entrepreneurs and management teams for the long-term, in both the public and private space. Its Investment Manager, WestBridge Capital Partners, LLC is a highly experienced firm, managing over $1.2 billion of capital, and focusing on investments in India. In the last fifteen years, the team led  investments in over 80 companies and oversaw a total investment of over $1.6 billion across multiple funds. For more information, please visit http://www.westbridgecap.com/

About Accion Frontier Inclusion Fund and Quona Capital

The Accion Frontier Inclusion Fund, managed by Quona Capital, is the first global emerging markets fintech fund for the unbanked, investing in innovative financial technology and services companies that promote financial inclusion for the two billion people around the world who lack access to savings accounts, checking, insurance, credit, and other basic financial services.  Quona Capital is an early growth-stage venture firm focused on financial technology for underserved consumers and businesses in emerging markets.  The fund is sponsored by Accion, a global leader in inclusive finance with a rich history of ‘double-bottom line’ investing, where its impact investments create positive economic and social returns. More at http://www.quona.com and http://accion-staging.herokuapp.com/frontier.

Media Contact:
Jim Rosenberg
+1 202 560 3948
Jrosenberg@accion.org

About Intel Capital

Intel Capital, Intel’s strategic investment and M&A organization, backs innovative technology startups and companies worldwide. Intel Capital invests in a broad range of companies offering hardware, software, and services targeting computing and smart devices, cloud, datacenter, security, the Internet of Things, wearable and robotic technologies and semiconductor manufacturing. Since 1991, Intel Capital has invested more than US$11.6 billion in 1,440 companies in 57 countries. In that timeframe, 212 portfolio companies have gone public on various exchanges around the world, and 381 were acquired or participated in a merger.

Intel Capital has been investing in India since 1998. Since then, Intel Capital has invested over US$387 million in more than 90 technology companies across 10 cities in India. For more information on what makes Intel Capital one of the world’s most powerful venture capital firms, visit www.intelcapital.com or follow @Intelcapital.

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