B2B e-commerce unicorn Udaan eyeing IPO early next year

B2B e-commerce company, Udaan, may list on domestic stock exchanges early next year. As per a note shared by Udaan Chief Financial Officer (CFO) Aditya Pande, the company is in line to go public in next 12-18 months. BusinessToday.In accessed Pande's note to employees where he also announced that Microsoft joined the capital raise through convertible notes.

"We are excited to announce that Microsoft Corporation joined our Convertible Notes offering launched in October last year. M&G Prudential, Kaiser Permanente, Nomura, TOR, Arena Investors, Samena Capital and Ishana Capital amongst others participated in the Convertible Notes offering round. The Convertible Note offering launched in October 2021 witnessed 2X subscription, raised a total of ~$225 Million," Pande said.

"The step to bolster the balance sheet through mandatorily Convertible Notes to IPO highlights continued evolution of Udaan’s capital strategy and is in line with our preparation for a public listing in the next 12-18 months. With the closure of the Convertible Notes round, total funds raised by Udaan through debt and Convertible Notes in the last 6 months has reached nearly USD 275 Million," he added.

Last year, Udaan raised $280 million in a Series D round led by Octahedron Capital and Moonstone Capital with participation from existing investors Lightspeed Venture Partners, DST Global, GGV Capital, Altimeter Capital and Tencent.

The company was valued at $3.1 billion.

BT earlier reported that Udaan had also started a pilot project for its community grocery delivery initiative in 1,000 cities and planned to expand to 1,500 cities. The start-up has also set its target of 1 million transactions by the next month. The business model, as per sources, is on the lines of China's big e-commerce start-up, Pinduoduo, that filled the vacuum of community-level shopping in China's Internet commerce industry through group purchases.

"Under the pilot project, the local retailer or kirana takes bulk orders from the neighbourhoods or societies on Price Company app and then Udaan delivers the groceries in next 24 hours," a source said.

Also read: Microsoft backs Udaan in the $275 million capital raise fund

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