The rapid growth of mobile data, which is affordable and very fast, allowed Indians to go online for the first times in the last decade. However, there are still many areas of the South Asian economy that remain largely offline. Factory is one of these. India has approximately 150,000 factories. However, the vast majority lack digital tools to connect with and sell their products to retail outlets.
Six years ago, four people (Siddharth Vij Chaitanya Rathi Siddharth Rastogi, Siddharth Rahtogi, and Shubham Aggarwal) came together to face this challenge.
They announced Tuesday that startup Bijnis, which they launched on Tuesday, continues to be successful in the market and has gained the trust of many investors.
They announced that Bijnis raised $30 million in Series B financing led by Westbridge Capital. Existing investors, including Sequoia Capital India and InfoEdge, Waterbridge Ventures, Matrix Partners India and Waterbridge Ventures, participated in the new funding.
New Delhi-based startup runs an eponymous app which Vij described in an interview with TechCrunch as an operating system that can be used to run factories.
The Bijnis app assists factory operators in generating demand from buyers and retailers, and helps them to procure supplies. Through partnerships with many industry leaders, it also provides logistics and payment services to manufacturers.
Problem is, these manufacturers spend a lot of time managing factories. They rely on wholesalers or other agents to buy and sell. He explained that these players don't share the identities of the buyers because this is how they can make a lot from the manufacturers.
Bijnis wants to eliminate the traditional agents out of the equation in order to help manufacturers significantly improve their profits as well as aggressively expand their business by finding new customers. He said that one of the ways Bijnis is helping these companies establish a digital presence online is to help them find customers.
Due to their family's manufacturing background, the founding team has a strong understanding of each category. This has allowed them to create a compelling proposition for retailers and manufacturers in the fashion and lifestyle categories.
Bijnis has established itself as the B2B platform for choice in these categories, and we are thrilled to partner with them in the transformation of the Indian ecosystem for these categories.
Vij said that more than 5,000 factories are using the Bijnis platform to sell their products in the fashion, footwear, and lifestyle categories. He added that the startup has mainly focused on making sure that factories who use the app are able generate enough demand, rather than trying to attract as many manufacturers as possible. Over 100,000 retailers have also been added to the platform.
The startup stated that the new fund will allow it to win more retailers and manufacturers as more businesses become aware of Bijnis products. He said that the startup employs more than 200 people and plans to expand its product range.
India's traditional supply chains for lifestyle categories are still fragmented and unorganized. These supply chains are anchored by small and medium manufacturers, which make up a large part of India's manufacturing sector. This is a sign of India's rapid digital transformation, according to Shraeyansh Thkur, vice president of Sequoia Capital India.
Bijnis' vision to build an operating system for manufacturing within this segment is extremely exciting to the team and they look forward partnering with them.
