Udaan is India's largest B2B e-commerce platform, founded in 2016 and headquartered in Bengaluru, connecting small and medium-sized retailers (like kiranas, chemists, hotels, and offices) with wholesalers, manufacturers, and brands across categories such as FMCG, staples, fruits & vegetables, pharma, electronics, fashion, industrial goods, and household essentials.[3][5][2] It solves supply chain inefficiencies in India's fragmented retail sector—where millions of mom-and-pop shops rely on unreliable middlemen—by offering a mobile app for transparent sourcing, inventory management, logistics, payments, hassle-free returns, and fintech services like udaanCapital for working capital, achieving about 70% market share and serving millions of businesses nationwide.[1][3][5] Udaan's growth momentum includes unicorn status in 2018 (within a year of launch), over 1 million retailers, 20,000+ sellers across 900+ cities, and strong network effects driving scalability through technology-enabled efficiency.[1][3]
Udaan was founded in 2016 by Amod Malviya, Vaibhav Gupta, and Sujeet Kumar, all former senior executives at Flipkart, India's major e-commerce player later acquired by Walmart.[1][3] Exposed to India's massive yet inefficient retail industry during their Flipkart tenure—where small retailers faced issues with pricing, quality, and middlemen—the trio identified the opportunity to digitize B2B trade, with Sujeet Kumar having built Flipkart's Ekart logistics arm and holding a BTech from IIT Delhi.[1][3] The idea emerged to create a smartphone app uniting wholesalers, distributors, producers, and retailers, launching operations effectively in 2017; early traction was explosive, hitting unicorn valuation ($1B+) by September 2018 and rapidly scaling to serve fragmented markets outside organized retail.[1][2]
Udaan rides India's digital B2B transformation trend, modernizing a $500B+ fragmented retail market dominated by 12M+ small kiranas reliant on inefficient intermediaries, by bringing e-commerce scale to offline trade amid rising smartphone penetration (over 500M users) and UPI payments.[1][3][5] Timing aligns with post-2016 demonetization and GST reforms accelerating digitization, plus COVID-19 boosting online wholesale; market forces like government MSME support and e-commerce growth (projected $350B by 2026) favor its play.[1][2] It influences the ecosystem by democratizing market access, catalyzing SME growth, and partnering with entities like JPMorganChase to uplift MSMEs, fostering economic modernization beyond metros.[3][5][6]
Udaan is poised to deepen dominance in India's eB2B space through category expansion (e.g., agri, healthcare) and fintech-logistics synergies, potentially eyeing IPO amid maturing profitability and global B2B parallels like Faire.[1][2][5] Trends like AI-driven supply chains, rural digitization, and quick commerce will shape its path, evolving influence from enabler to infrastructure for Bharat's small businesses—building on its Flipkart roots to truly become India's B2B powerhouse.[3][5]
Udaan has raised $1.6B in total across 7 funding rounds.
Udaan's investors include Atomico, Lakestar, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Dustin Moskovitz, Sam Altman, Catapult Capital, DST Global, Fuel Capital, Frederique Dame, Logos Labs, M13, Scribble Ventures.
Udaan has raised $1.6B across 7 funding rounds. Most recently, it raised $110.0M Series G in February 2025.
