UDAAN

The three founders were senior Flipkart executives — Amod Malviya was CTO, Vaibhav Gupta was CFO, and Sujeet Kumar ran supply chain. They had spent years at Flipkart solving consumer e-commerce in India and realized the B2B commerce market was bigger, less competitive, and more structurally broken.

India had 14 million small retailers (kirana stores) who were buying stock through a chain of distributors that added cost at every link. No technology had touched this chain.

Udaan launched as a mobile-first B2B platform where a retailer could order directly from a brand and get credit to do it. It raised $10M seed funding and $50M Series A within a year, becoming the fastest Indian startup to reach unicorn status.

Udaan is a B2B marketplace — it connects manufacturers and brands directly to small retailers (kirana stores, pharmacies, restaurants) cutting out the layers of distributors and middlemen that traditionally took 20-40% margins in the Indian supply chain. Udaan charges commission on transactions and also offers credit through Udaan Capital to small retailers who need short-term working capital to stock inventory.

Udaan B2B marketplace (manufacturer to retailer ordering), Udaan Capital (working capital loans for retailers), Udaan logistics network

Udaan built a dense logistics network — its own last-mile delivery for B2B orders across India. It expanded from electronics into food, pharma, apparel, and grocery.

The embedded credit (Udaan Capital) became a major differentiator: small retailers who previously had no access to formal credit could now stock inventory on 30-day terms. This created loyalty and stickiness.

Udaan took on enormous credit risk by offering working capital loans to millions of small retailers. When collection rates declined during the COVID pandemic and the economic slowdown, Udaan had to write off significant loans.

The company also expanded too fast into too many product categories and geographies simultaneously. It went through three rounds of layoffs between 2020 and 2023 and restructured its business to focus on its most profitable verticals (food and grocery, pharma, telecom accessories).

Lightspeed Venture Partners, DST Global, Altimeter Capital, Microsoft, Tencent, GGV Capital, Hillhouse Capital