OfBusiness, business to business(B2B) e-commerce firm, has raised $160 million to become the 18th unicorn of 2021. The current funding round was led by Japan-based Softbank Vision Fund II.
OfBusiness Closes $160 Million Financing Event
SoftBank Vision Fund II and existing investor Alpha Wave Incubation invested $160 million in B2B e-commerce company OfBusiness. This is the second funding round closed by Gurugram B2B startup within four months.
In the last financing event, it raised $110 million in the Series D2 round from Alpha Wave in April. After that, it was valued at $800 million. OfBusiness valuation has surged to $1.6 billion after the current fundraising. That means Asish Mahapatra-led B2B startup has doubled its valuation within four months.
OfBusiness had confirmed in its regulatory filings that it has exchanged 41,675 of Series E CCPS at a face value of Rs 10 and a premium of Rs 28,3585.11 per share to raise Rs 1,181.85 crore or $160 million. Out of $160 million, SoftBank has invested over $151 million in the current round, while Alpha Wave contributed the remaining amount.
As per Moneycontrol exclusive report, the current funding round talks were going on since June 2021 between OfBusiness and Softbank. Fintrackr has estimated that OfBusiness valuation has approximately reached around $1.57 billion or Rs 11,700 crore.
SoftBank Investment and B2B Unicorn Rise
SoftBank, a Japan-based investment firm, has accelerated its investment activities during 2021. OfBusiness investment is the sixth funding event where Japan-based investors actively participated in 2021. Last week, it helped online food delivery giant Swiggy to close a financing round of $1.25 billion.
E-commerce marketplace Flipkart, social commerce platform Meesho, new age banking tech company Zeta and digital adoption solutions provider Whatfix have also raised funds from Vision Fund II in 2021.
After current funding, SoftBank has become the owner of OfBusiness’s 9.62% stake, while Alpha Wave’s stake in B2B firm has surged to 10.62%. Meanwhile, co-founders have diluted their collective holdings from 28.58% to 25.68%.
Seven-year-old OfBusiness helps source raw material and provides companies with a portal to bid for governor meat tenders. It also provides loan facilities up to Rs 2 crore to merchants. As per OfBusiness claims, it works with Godrej, Zomato, and Reliance Industries to ease the process of the agri-product supply chain and hampered than 5,000 clients and over 2,000 suppliers on the platform.
OfBusiness is the third startup that got unicorn status in July 2021. Retail car marketplace Droom with a valuation of $1.2 billion and logistics firm BlackBuck with $1.02 billion are the two other Indian startups that joined the unicorn club in the same month.
In 2021, seven B2B startups have achieved $1 billion and above valuation out of a total of 18 unicorns. OfBusiness, BlackBuck, Browserstack, Moglix, Zetwerk, Zeta and Infra. The market is the B2B Indian startups that got unicorn status in 2021.
