[Funding Alert] This B2B Online Marketplace For Manufacturers Is Ramping Up Efforts To Widen Supplier Base Bengaluru-based Zetwerk raised of INR 16 crore from InnoVen Capital
By Shreya Ganguly •
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The B2B marketplace sector has been gaining attraction from the industry stakeholders as SME businesses increasingly turn to the new-age platform to reach out to a wide range of suppliers, allowing for better price discovery, greater efficiency and lower purchasing costs. The growing segment has also attracted investors' interest in the segment. On Wednesday, the Bengaluru-based B2B online marketplace for manufacturing services, Zetwerk announced that it raised INR 16 crore from InnoVen Capital.
According to Amrit Acharya, co-founder & CEO of Zetwerk, the funds will be used to widen their supplier base and expand their capabilities. "We look forward to partner with InnoVen Capital as we continue to scale our business, both domestically and internationally. We are focused on deepening our capabilities and widening our supplier base, as we build a world-class platform for manufacturing services," said Acharya.
Offering Manufacturing Supply Chain Solutions
Founded in 2018 by Amrit Acharya, Rahul Sharma, Srinath Ramakkrushnan and Vishal Chaudhary, Zetwerk is an on-demand manufacturing platform for original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and engineering procurement construction (EPM) companies.
The start-up claims to currently have 1,500 SMEs and 100 enterprises across the platform. On the demand side, Zetwerk works with mid-to-large OEM companies from India and southeast Asia, who require procurement of custom products and machine parts that are not available off-the-shelf in the market. On the supply side, Zetwerk works with manufacturing SMEs like Bharat Wires, RN Fabricators, and GM Engineers across multiple categories (like fabrication, machining, casting, forging, etc.) who can meet this demand.
Prior to this round, Zetwerk had raised $32 million in its Series B funding round in December 2019 from Lightspeed and Greenoaks Capital. The company's existing investors such as Sequoia India, Accel and Kae Capital also participated in the round. Besides the institutional investors, Udaan co-founder Vaibhav Gupta and Oyo chief strategy officer Maninder Gulati had also participated in their personal capacities.
The start-up counts brands such as Kelvion, Clair, SMS Group, Elex, BGR Energy and Sterling & Wilson as a part of its clientele base.
Increase in B2B Start-ups
According to the consultancy firm Zinnov, B2B start-ups were just 26 per cent of the total start-ups in India in 2014 but they comprised of 43 per cent of the total in 2018.
Currently, Zetwerk competes with B2B e-commerce marketplaces such as IndustryBuying, Moglix, IndiaMART, etc.
