TL;DRIndian B2B ecommerce firm Udaan raised $160M combining fresh equity, debt, and bond conversions to clean up its balance sheet ahead of an IPO.
Indian B2B ecommerce platform Udaan has secured $160 million in a funding round that combines fresh equity from a new investor, additional debt, and the conversion of existing convertible bonds into equity, according to Bloomberg. Lightspeed Venture Partners and M&G Investments are participating in the round. The deal is designed to clean up Udaan’s balance sheet ahead of a planned initial public offering that the company expects within the next two years.
The timing matters because Udaan defaulted on $170 million in convertible notes that matured on June 30, according to Business Standard reporting from earlier this month. Under the new arrangement, a new investor is providing fresh equity while existing bondholders are converting their holdings into shares. Bondholders who chose not to convert have had their remaining notes extended on revised terms.
Udaan was founded in 2016 by three former Flipkart engineers and has built a marketplace connecting manufacturers and wholesalers with more than three million small retailers across India. The platform covers categories including electronics, groceries, pharmaceuticals, and general merchandise, and claims roughly 70 percent of India’s business-to-business ecommerce market by volume, according to industry estimates cited by Caproasia. Vaibhav Gupta, one of the three co-founders, became chief executive in 2021 after co-founder Amod Malviya stepped back, while the third co-founder Sujeet Kumar remains on the board.
