Bizongo, one of the largest business-to-business online marketplaces for packaging needs in India, has raised $30 million in fresh funding round as it looks to widen its footprint in the nation and expand to more categories.
The new financing round, Series C, was led by Switzerland-based hedge fund Schroder Adveq, which manages assets worth $10 billion. Existing investors B Capital, Accel, Chiratae Ventures, and IFC also participated in the round, the startup said.
Mumbai-based Bizongo has raised about $56 million to date. It was valued at about $96 million in its Series B financing round in 2018, according to an analysis of its regulatory filings.
The five-year-old startup serves as a marketplace for businesses to identify, buy, and sell material packing solutions across industries. It also offers in-house packing design, development, and procurement solutions.
Sachin Agarwal, chief operating officer and co-founder of Bizongo, said the startup offers a unique value proposition of promising a “100% availability of packaging material and no-stock-outs at very low inventory.”
“This helps clients to reduce their packaging material procurement cost by 2-5% and at the same time ensures better production planning for our supply partners. This creates a strong value proposition for all stakeholders across the value chain,” he said in a statement.
Bizongo did not reveal how many customers it has, but said they span across some of the nation’s leading e-commerce, retail, FMCG, FMCD industries. On its website, it mentions that it works with over 750 manufacturers in India, and has delivered 290 million packaging units to date. It also claims to have served over 350 brands.
In a statement, Aniket Deb, chief executive and co-founder of Bizongo, said the startup has witnessed a “significant improvement in operating metrics since the last round of financing and the current round will further help us grow the business in a sustainable way.”
The fresh fund will be deployed to ramp up technology infrastructure and to expand to newer sectors such as pharma packaging. Deb said the startup also plans to work on expanding its presence in the country.
“We believe in the vision of the founders who are transforming and digitising the highly fragmented B2B packaging marketplace by leveraging technology and a unique supply chain efficiency solution. Bizongo has demonstrated strong momentum by continuing to add marquee clients and we have been impressed with the company’s rapid growth trajectory over the past year,” said Kabir Narang, General Partner at B Capital Group, in a statement.
Source: TechCrunch
