IndiaMART Intermesh Ltd has bought a 26% stake in Adansa Solutions Pvt Ltd, which operates an accounting software brand Realbooks through its wholly-owned subsidiary Tradezeal Online Pvt Ltd, the company said on Monday.
As part of the transaction, IndiaMART has agreed to acquire shares via a mix of primary and secondary share purchases for Rs 13.75 crore, IndiaMART said.
Realbooks’ investment marks IndiaMART’s 12th investment since it got listed in mid-2019. The company has now invested over $100 million in 10 startups in 2021-22 (FY22) alone. Realbooks’ investment also adds another accounting company to IndiaMART’s portfolio. Before Realbooks, IndiaMART had invested over Rs 600 crore in three accounting firms. One of the deals included a 100% acquisition of accounting software company Busy Infotech Pvt Ltd for Rs 500 crore in its biggest deal so far.
"We at IndiaMART firmly believe that Indian businesses are diverse and have varied accounting and billing needs. Unlike existing desktop-based software solutions which were designed for traditional businesses, the team at Realbooks has consciously designed a cloud first product which makes it appealing for new age businesses. We believe that this investment complements other initiatives we are taking within this space,” said Dinesh Agarwal, Founder and CEO of IndiaMART.
Realbooks runs a cloud-based accounting software product for businesses. The platform enables businesses to create customized invoices, attach files to vouchers, and manage their inventory. It also allows managing different business units from a single dashboard.
“We are solving two problems for Indian businesses. We are organising financial data for companies working pan India having offices in multiple cities and states such as logistics, auto dealerships, e-commerce. We have created a platform for CA (chartered accountant) firms to provide accounting services to their clients and managing their compliances with integrated GST solutions,” said Anurag Mohta, Chief Executive Officer of Realbooks.
VCCircle had reported last week that the company’s investments were aimed at expanding horizontally at a time when competition in the online B2B e-commerce space is heating up from new-age technology companies such as Udaan, Zetwerk and Moglix among others, which have pocketed significant venture funding over the last three years and are fast expanding in the country.
However, in an interaction with VCCircle, Agarwal argued that IndiaMART is different from the new-age companies and is making investments in startups, not because of competition from them.
Moreover, Agarwal had said that IndiaMART’s investments have primarily been in companies catering to marketing and logistics along with accounting and finance sectors and he was confident that the investments will lead to IndiaMART onboarding more employees.
In January, IndiaMART had invested in e-commerce enabler EasyEcomm. Its other investments include Gurugram-based Shipway Technology, Kolkata-based Truckhall, Simply Vyapar, Legistify, logistics company Aerchain and Fleetx Technologies, among others.
