Business-to-business online marketplace Pumpkart has raised an undisclosed sum of money from Dinesh Dua, the chairman for startups and entrepreneurship at the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII).
The startup did not disclose the stake that Dua has picked up in the firm.
The Punjab-based firm told VCCircle the company’s valuation, after Dua’s funding, stands at Rs 70 crore (approximately $9.87 million at current exchange rates).
Founded by KS Bhatia in 2014, Pumpkart focuses on appliances and electrical products. It originally began operations as a business-to-consumer (B2C) company selling pumps, but pivoted to a B2B model earlier this year.
The company says its medium-term goals include capturing the retailer market in North India. It has signed an initial pact with the Himachal Pradesh government to open service centres in the state for micro, small and medium-sized enterprises, and is also in the process of preparing a similar agreement with the Punjab administration.
Pumpkart, which counts Innov8 co-founder Ritesh Malik among its investors, says it does not have any direct competitor. Companies working on the same model in other categories include Udaan, Industry Supplies and Moglix.
Deals in the B2B segment
Startups in several segments focussed on the B2B space have received considerable investor interest across all funding cycles, as they seek to offer efficiently-organised procurement and supply chains services to firms of all sizes at economical rates.
Earlier this month, online marketplace Udaan raised $585 million (about Rs 4,166 crore) in its Series D funding round from a clutch of high-profile investors including Chinese conglomerate Tencent. Other investors included Altimeter Capital, Footpath Ventures and Hillhouse Capital.
One of the larger cheques to a startup in the segment was written for industrial goods marketplace Moglix, which raised $60 million (around Rs 410 crore) in its Series D funding round from US-based Tiger Global Management and others in July.
In August, ShopKirana E-Trading Pvt. Ltd raised Rs 71.4 crore (around $10 million) in a funding round led by Info Edge (India) Ltd, which owns a number of portals including job site Naukri.com. The same month, B2B marketplace for real estate and construction materials Infra.Market raised $3.5 million (around Rs 25.04 crore) in a seed funding round from Accel.