- Bijnis (formerly known as ShoeKonnect) announced today that it has raised 10 Million $ funding in a Series A round of investment co-led by Matrix Partners India and Sequoia Capital India.
Bijnis (formerly known as ShoeKonnect) announced today that it has raised 10 Million $ funding in a Series A round of investment co-led by Matrix Partners India and Sequoia Capital India, along with existing investors InfoEdge and Waterbridge Ventures.
Founded in 2015 by Siddharth Vij, Chaitanya Rathi, Siddharth Rastogi, and Shubham Agarwal, the company focuses on facilitating a digital transaction layer between manufacturers and retailers in the largely unorganized categories of footwear, fashion, and accessories.
Bijnis currently enables 400+ manufacturers to serve 60,000+ retailers across 700 (out of 729) districts in India.
With the Series A funding, Bijnis will continue to help manufacturers grow their business by expanding their distribution network of retailers across India. Additionally, this infusion of capital will be used for building out more products, and scalable technology focused on manufacturers in the footwear and fashion categories.
Siddharth Vij, Chief Executive Officer and Co-founder of Bijnis comments on securing the new investment, “Traditional B2B supply chains are still largely unorganized and fragmented. There lies an immense opportunity in building a digital ecosystem around the same. Building the model for one category over the last three years has helped us understand the problems that lie at the core of unorganized supply chains. We believe we are on the right track and positioned to expand and revolutionize the traditional B2B ecosystem around the fashion and lifestyle categories. We are excited to welcome Sequoia Capital India and Matrix Partners India on our journey of building Bijnis and grateful to all our investors for the faith they have shown in our mission and the ability to execute towards it.”
Shraeyansh Thakur, Vice President at Sequoia Capital India LLP said, “Traditional supply chains across fashion and footwear category are highly unorganized and fragmented in India. The industry is at the brink of massive transformation thanks to rapid digitization across various layers in these supply chains. Bijnis is leveraging these trends to build the next-gen product for small manufacturers who are the backbone of these supply chains in India. We are excited to partner with the Bijnis team in their mission to digitize small manufacturers and empower them by bringing information symmetry, efficiency, and expanding their reach.”
Vikram Vaidyanathan, MD, Matrix India said, “Traditional manufacturers & retailers of India are digitizing their business at a rapid rate creating a new supply chain. Bijnis is playing a unique role in redefining this supply chain for apparel starting with the footwear category. We believe in their manufacturer-first approach driving tech adoption and efficiency for all players in the value chain. We’re excited to be on this journey with the founders and our co-investors.”
Kitty Agarwal, Partner at Info Edge Ventures said, “The Bijnis team has executed very well on their vision to build an alternate, direct-to-retailers distribution platform for lifestyle categories, starting with footwear. The platform’s adoption amongst manufacturers and retailers has been rapid with very high dependency. We feel privileged to be a part of their journey since our first investment in 2018 and look forward to working with the team and the co-investors to scale up this platform to more categories as well as go deeper into existing ones.
Ravi Kaushik, Partner at WaterBridge Ventures said, “The founding team at Bijnis have developed incredible clarity in using technology to disrupt the age-old B2B supply chain in India. Coming from a family background that runs traditional distribution businesses, founders have deep insights and over the years, have not only demonstrated tenacity but also empathy with existing market participants to develop Bijnis as a goto tech platform. Having started with the footwear category, they are now primed to expand and disrupt other categories, particularly with their supply first philosophy and a sharp ability to tap into latent demand. WaterBridge Ventures is proud to partner with them. “
