Zetwerk, a business-to-business marketplace for custom manufacturing, is in talks to raise $35 million as part of its series B equity financing round, led by venture capital firms Lightspeed Venture Partners and Greenoaks Capital, said two people close to the deal, requesting anonymity.
Founded in 2018 by Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Madras alumni Amrit Acharya and Srinath Ramakkrushnan, the firm procures manufacturing services such as fabrication, machining, casting and forging from small and medium companies and connects them to mid-to-large OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) and engineering, procurement and construction firms in India and South-East Asia. The buyers include Jindal, BGR Energy, Embassy Group, Sterling & Wilson and Fidelity Contracts, who want to procure custom products and machine parts that are not available off-the-shelf. The company has a total delivery capacity of more than 15,000 tonnes per month across India.
Zetwerk works primarily with clients in the oil and gas, power, renewable energy and infrastructure businesses.
Zetwerk last raised $9 million in a Series A round from Accel, Sequoia and Kae in March 2019. It followed a $1.2 million seed funding round from Kae and Sequoia in August 2018.
“The Series B round will also see participation from its existing VC investors, Sequoia Capital, Accel Partners and Kae Capital,” one of the people cited above said. Zetwork’s co-founder Acharya declined to comment on a phone call. Lightspeed and Greenoaks Capital did not respond to emailed queries.
Lightspeed and Greenoaks are also co-investors in accommodation startup Oyo, one of India’s most valuable startups at $10 billion.
Online B2B marketplaces have caught the fancy of investors as small and mid-sized businesses are increasingly turning to the internet to interact with a wide range of suppliers, allowing for better price discovery and lower purchasing costs. Udaan, a B2B marketplace for fashion products, groceries and electronics for manufacturers, brands and retailers, became the fastest Indian startup to achieve unicorn status, or a valuation of more than a billion dollars, when it raised $225 million from DST Global and Lightspeed last year.
Source: Mint