Udaan, the Indian e-commerce startup raises $225 million

India’s technology ecosystem is indeed thriving. An e-commerce venture called Udaan has raised a staggering $225 million in venture capital funding. What’s more is that this company was started by former executives of Flipkart, India’s homegrown answer to Amazon and its toughest competitor in the subcontinent. Udann was started in 2016 by Sujeet Kumar, Amod Malviya, and Vaibhav Gupta, who served as the president of operations, Chief Technology Officer and Senior Vice President respectively at Flipkart.

This round of funding was led by two venture capital firms, namely DST Global and Lightspeed Venture Partners. This was a Series C round of funding and took the valuation of Udaan to the coveted $1 billion milestone, making it the fastest-ever startup in India to join the elite club of tech unicorns. The three executives quit their jobs at Flipkart in 2016 to start their venture, which is a B2B platform to allow small and medium-sized businesses to conduct business directly with manufacturers.

Udaan raised $10 million in 2016 in its Series A round, followed by an amazing $50 million in the Series B earlier this year. Its mobile app allows hundreds of thousands of traders, wholesalers, and retailers to connect and interact directly with their respective manufacturers. It has taken little more than two years for this startup to achieve the unicorn status, an impressive feat by any measure. Only a handful of companies have managed to attain the billion dollar valuation in such a short period of time.