B2B Marketplace Bijnis Raises $10 Million In Funding Led By Matrix Partners And Sequoia India

Bijnis, a technology based B2B marketplace for unorganised retail segment on Tuesday announced that it has raised $10 mn in Series A funding round. The funding was led by Matrix Partners India and Sequoia Capital India, along with existing investors including InfoEdge and Waterbridge Ventures.

With this round of investment, Bijnis, formerly known as ShoeKonnect, will help manufacturers grow their business by expanding their distribution network of retailers across India. Additionally, the funds will also be used for building out more products and scalable technology focused on manufacturers in the footwear and fashion categories.

Commenting on the fundraise, Siddharth Vij, chief executive officer and co-founder of Bijnis said, "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. " 

Founded by Siddharth Vij, Chaitanya Rathi, Siddharth Rastogi, and Shubham Agarwal in 2015, the technology based platform focuses on facilitating a digital transaction layer between manufacturers and retailers in the unorganized categories of footwear, fashion, and accessories. The start-up currently enables 400 plus manufacturers to serve 60,000 plus retailers across 700 (out of 729) districts in India. The startup claims to enable sellers to create an e-distribution channel to sell directly and receive orders from retailers across India besides managing the payments and transportation for them.

“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," said Shraeyansh Thakur, vice-president at Sequoia Capital India LLP.