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Udaan Reviews

Bengaluru, Karnataka

—/ 5

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Udaan is India's largest business-to-business (eB2B) e-commerce platform, specifically designed to empower small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) across the nation. Founded in June 2016 by former Flipkart executives Amod Malviya, Sujeet Kumar, and Vaibhav Gupta, the company is headquartered in Bengaluru, Karnataka. The founders leveraged their deep expertise in technology and supply chain operations to address the massive, highly fragmented traditional trade ecosystem in India, which connects millions of small retailers, such as neighborhood kirana shops, chemists, hotels, and local offices, directly with manufacturers, brands, wholesalers, and importers. The company operates a comprehensive, full-stack marketplace model across a diverse range of categories, including Fast-Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG), staples, fruits and vegetables, electronics, lifestyle, home and kitchen, toys, and pharmaceuticals. By leveraging a mobile application to establish transparent pricing and direct procurement, Udaan aims to eliminate unreliable middlemen, thereby cutting supply chain inefficiencies and offering goods at competitive wholesale prices to millions of merchants. Udaan's growth trajectory is characterized by rapid scale and strong network effects. It achieved highly coveted "unicorn" status in September 2018, just 26 months after its inception, making it one of the fastest startups in India to cross a $1 billion valuation. Today, the platform commands a dominant market share of approximately 70% within India's eB2B landscape. Its technology-enabled logistics network, operating under the brand Udaan Express, manages supply chain operations and daily deliveries across more than 900 cities and 12,000 pin codes. In addition to its core marketplace and logistics operations, Udaan addresses a critical pain point for small businesses through its specialized fintech arm, UdaanCapital. Recognizing that traditional retailers often lack access to formal banking systems, UdaanCapital utilizes an AI-driven credit underwriting model to offer trade credit and working capital loans. This fintech synergy has significantly boosted order frequencies, seller onboarding, and overall customer loyalty across the ecosystem. Financially, Udaan remains a privately held startup backed by leading global venture capital firms, including Lightspeed Venture Partners, M&G, Microsoft, Tencent, DST Global, GGV Capital, and Altimeter Capital. Over its lifetime, the company has raised over $2 billion across multiple funding rounds to scale its tech stack, expand its categories, and reinforce its cold-chain and warehousing infrastructure. In recent years, under the leadership of CEO Vaibhav Gupta, the company has strategically shifted its focus toward sustainable unit economics, achieving contribution margin positivity and EBITDA breakeven across several core operational categories as it eyes a potential future public listing.