Moglix which is an eCommerce company specializing in B2B procurement of industrial products. The company has raised an undisclosed financial investment by renowned industrialist, Ratan Tata. This marks Tata’s entry as an investor in a manufacturing tech-startup, adding to his varied portfolio of eCommerce and new-age technology enabled companies. With his expertise and keen interest in the sector, Tata will play an important role in mentoring Moglix on business growth, global expansion and leadership.
Founded in August 2015 by Rahul Garg, a former Google employee with extensive experience in building global products and running sales across Asia, Moglix is focused on technologically disrupting the B2B Industrial products space for suppliers and buyers across the globe. The company currently specializes in B2B procurement of industrial products such as MRO, Fasteners and Industrial Electricals and is partnering with manufacturers and distributors across these categories in India, China and other Asian countries. Moglix is also playing an important role in facilitating online convenience and enabling supply chain efficiencies in business purchasing.
Moglix has raised Pre-Series A funding from Accel Partners and Jungle Ventures. The funds are being used to enhance the technology platform, build a deep supplier base as well as increase marketing spends across Asia.
As the Government is aggressively driving manufacturing growth in India through the Make in India and Digital India campaigns, Moglix is passionate about steering the company to build on the initiatives. The company is focused on bringing technology and manufacturing together to drive transparency, efficiency and scale for manufacturing companies within India, making them globally competitive and enabling the use of technology for procurement, sales and marketing, supply network optimization in both domestic and global markets.
Team BWDisrupt Interacts With Rahul Garg, Founder, Moglix And Spoke To HimTriggering PointThe inspiration for Moglix comes from the use of technology to make a major impact on the country. Moglix is at the confluence of ‘Make In India” and “Digital India” and we believe technology can be a strong factor in propelling the efficiency and scale for both procurement and sales of the organizations.
Coming from the world of Global advertising exchange, I looked at how the principles of marketplaces could be applied effectively to the Global “physical product trade”.
Challenges FacedMost of the manufacturing industries in India were setup in 60’s to 80’s and therefore have remained low on technology adoption whether it is an ERP, Procurement, Planning, Inventory management etc. We are working with many of these companies to fast forward them to the digital age where technology can enable them to do tasks 3-5X faster. As with every change it needs people to adapt to new business practices which take time and continuous effort. We continue to see the world of B2B commerce change over the last 1 year significantly and are excited about the disruption in the space in the coming years.
Competitors We think of our primary competition as Offline trade. The B2B commerce has remained largely fragmented and unorganized and the business processes have remained rudimentary in terms of phone calls and continuous follow-ups. Alibaba would be the largest name in B2B commerce and Moglix realized the fact that while Alibaba platform remains largely as a Lead generation platform – the market / business customers have evolved towards a Transaction oriented platform. We are focused on building this as a Transaction platform and probably correct to call ourself the Alibaba 2.0.
Point of DifferentiationOffline trade and Moglix can’t be compared in the true sense. Given the fragmentation of the supply side – we become the single destination for people to order from few lakh products without worrying about the price and the supply-chain breakages.
We are serving some of the largest Auto, Electrical and PSUs in the country. Indian Oil, Indiaforge, C&S Electric are some of the example buyers. We continue to grow our foot-print of the business buyers and we expect to serve several 1M+ medium to large enterprises in the coming years across the country.
Traction DetailsWe currently have 1000+ brands and 1L+ SKUs listed on the platform. We have served 10K+ buyers through our platform and have been growing at 40% MoM.
The Best and Worst Memories Best memory –starting from a true garage inside a welding manufacturing plant and growing Moglix to a strong business on a great trajectory.
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This is Meghna Shukla. She lives in Delhi. She is an engineering graduate and currently pursuing MBA from Jaypee Business School. She has a work experience of 2 years in content development. She loves to read and write.
