Udaan is a popular e-commerce company that was created by three former Flipkart executives: Sujeet Kumar, Amod Malviya, and Vaibhav Gupta. And Udaan has raised $225 million in Series C funding co-led by DST Global and Lightspeed Venture Partners. This round of funding values Udaan at more than $1 billion. This is the fastest that an Indian startup went from zero to more than a $1 billion in funding.
Kumar worked as the former president of operations at Flipkart. Malviya is the former chief technology officer (CTO) at Flipkart. And Gupta was the former SVP of business finance and analytics at Flipkart. The three of them left Flipkart in 2016 and started up Udaan after that. And earlier this year, Flipkart sold to Walmart for $16 billion.
In late 2016, Udaan raised $10 million in Series A funding led by Lightspeed. And then the company raised another $50 million in funding earlier this year — which was also led by Lightspeed.
“We have been fortunate to see the company scale very rapidly from close quarters,” said Lightspeed India managing director Bejul Somaia in an emailed statement to TechCrunch. “We’re drawn to the company’s first-principles approach to solving significant problems that are unique in the Indian context.” Somaia has been on the board of directors at Udaan since the Series A round of funding.
Udaan is used by 150,000 traders, retailers, and wholesalers in India so that SMBs can do business directly with manufacturers thus cutting out any potential middlemen. Consumers can purchase consumer products and electronics through the app. And Udaan is soon planning to offer fruits and vegetables, office supplies, and industrial products through the app.
