Moglix, a B2B e-commerce platform for manufacturing goods, has raised $120 million as a part of its latest series E funding round, led by Falcon Edge Capital and Harvard Management Company (HMC), taking the overall valuation of the company to $1 billion.

Existing investors Tiger Global, Sequoia Capital India and Venture Highway also participated as part of this round.

This is almost a three-time jump in valuation for the company which had last raised $60 million in July 2019, at a valuation of $200 million-$300 million.

Read: Moglix launches supply chain finance platform Credlix

With the current equity infusion, the total funds raised till date by Moglix stands at $220 million.

“We started six years ago with a firm belief in the untapped potential of the Indian manufacturing sector. We are glad that Falcon Edge Capital and Harvard Management Company (HMC) have partnered with us in this journey. Falcon Edge, with its deep roots in the Middle East and Europe and an understanding of public companies will guide us through the next phase of our journey,”

said Rahul Garg, founder and chief executive officer, Moglix.

The six year old startup provides manufacturers with industrial goods through its e-commerce platform, and is building an operating system for manufacturing that provides its customers a full stack service covering procurement, packaging, supply chain financing and highly integrated software.

As India battles the deadly second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, startups, corporates, and individuals are all rallying together to ensure that they are doing their bit. The biggest challenge in the second wave is the dearth of oxygen cylinders along with crucial medicines.

“We estimate the need for at least 100,000 oxygen concentrators across India. However, each person buying an oxygen concentrator for themselves is not scalable and will lead to inefficient distribution of precious resources. Most people will find the cost prohibitive and the requirement short-lived (one to two weeks),”

Rahul says.

B2B ecommerce startup Moglix has been supplying PPE, oxygen concentrators, oximeters, thermometers etc. to essential goods and services companies to ensure their employees are protected. It has also distributed 15 million+ PPE kits and safety items amid this pandemic.

The startup has developed a “group sharing model” for increasing the impact of every oxygen concentrator by 100x, and is enabling organisations, NGOs, trusts, and RWAs to create oxygen concentrator banks for patients and providing a safety net for their communities.

“If your organisation would like to join us in this mission to provide a safety network to corona warriors, please write to us at info@moglix.com. We can help you set up similar network-based models for your organisation and share our learning/ SOPs. Let us come together to do our bit in this fight,”

Rahul Adds.

The manufacturing supply chain in India is witnessing a rebound within a year of the announcement of the Productivity Linked Incentive scheme for 13 sub-sectors. Envisaged at an outlay of Rs 145,000 crores, the scheme is expected to recharge job growth and manufacturing output. It has already attracted investment proposals worth Rs 5100 crores in pharmaceuticals and another Rs 11000 crores in large-scale electronics manufacturing. These numbers reflect a robust takeoff for the scheme despite a very challenging business climate due to the pandemic.

Indian MSMEs have an array of opportunities to look forward to over the next five to seven years. The PLI scheme has an anchor-led model that will enable OEMs to adopt an import-substitution approach and thus shift towards greater collaboration with Indian MSMEs to plug them into the global manufacturing supply chain ecosystem.

Backward Linkages Will Pass-Through Incentives to MSMEs

The PLI scheme envisages an annual increment in sales of goods made in India and minimum capital investment caps as the two factors for identifying the beneficiaries. The uniqueness of the PLI scheme’s systemic design will nudge large OEMs towards local sourcing for greater “Made in India” capacity utilization of Indian MSMEs and foster strong OEM-MSME partnerships. The supply chain collaboration will ensure a pass-through of the 4-6 percent cost cushion to MSMEs in the short-term, helping them develop cost competitiveness in the long run.

Moglix has again secured a spot in Deloitte’s 2020 Technology Fast 50 India list for the 3rd time in a row. Securing the 1st spot in 2018 with a winning growth rate of  11,836%, our growth record has remained unbeatable in the last 3 years.

Deloitte Technology Fast 50 India programme that started in 2005 has now become a pre-eminent event that recognises excellence in technology in India. The programme recognises, honours, and encourages businesses and entrepreneurs who have achieved remarkable revenue growth rates by harnessing technology, innovations, and skilled human resources.

Moglix is proud to share this achievement with fellow tech disruptors like Urban Company, Rupeek, RateGain, DataBeat, Razorpay, Vedantu, and many others for being the fastest tech-enablers in the country. 

Sandeep Goel, SVP- Technology shares his thoughts on how technology will pave the way for a futuristic manufacturing sector, at the Future Of Work Summit organized by YourStory.

He talks about the impact of COVID-19 and how it transformed the manufacturing sector in India. The pandemic accelerated the shift that Make in India has enabled in the sector, bringing about transformations, both physical and digital, boosting the self-reliance of India’s manufacturing sector.

Sandeep outlined key challenges that continue to persist in the sector, highlighting the need for streamlining order processing, and transaction data integration, and lack of intuitiveness when it comes to the application ecosystem. 

He highlighted the role of technology in altering the future of manufacturing. How rapid advancements in digital technologies are revolutionizing business supply chains, and are poised to transform how the procurement function delivers value and enables swift decision-making in the ecosystem. He also talked about the need for constant connectivity as the norm, and how sensors are bringing devices and machines to life in the Internet of Things.

Neelam Dhawan, tech pioneer, joins Moglix as board advisor. Neelam has previously worked at Hewlett Packard (HP) Enterprise and Microsoft, IBM and HCl, among other companies.

Currently, she is a supervisory board member at Royal Philips, Netherlands, and non-executive director at ICICI Bank India, Skylo Technologies, Capita PLC, and Yatra Online. Moglix said it plans to start a new phase of global expansion.

“I am excited about my new role as a board advisor at Moglix. Moglix is pioneering supply chain digital transformation in the country and overseas. I look forward to contributing to Moglix’s endeavors to grow and deliver impact globally at scale.”

Neelam has been instrumental in shaping the IT industry in India. Throughout her career, she has repeatedly demonstrated leadership, innovation, and fearlessness, values that we hold in high esteem at Moglix. The scale of operations and innovation that she has successfully implemented, and her vision resonate strongly with the mission of Moglix to reimagine B2B commerce and supply chain at scale globally. We are delighted to have her as the board advisor at Moglix.

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Rahul Goel, Vice President- Finance, talks about the challenges and success factors of new-age CFOs. Having worked with both startups and MNC’s, Rahul believes that the role of a CFO goes beyond finance when it comes to startups. He dissects various challenges that CFOs face in the startup world especially in the tech space, followed by the successes that lead around for CFOs.

A finance professional for over two decades, the Moglix CFO believes that two major factors that are often ignored by most financial heads at companies are growth and governance which play an important role in the journey. He stated that Indian companies have yet to understand the business model and efficiency of tech startups so that they can be evaluated correctly.

Given that tech startups ought to have cross-functional leaders, the biggest challenge for a CFO is balancing the speed and agility of the finance operations with the other parts of the business from product to marketing. “In the early stage of that product, the resources might be limited but the speed at which the company wants to run might be very fast,” Rahul added, highlighting the need for CFOs to learn about other domains to react in a quick manner.

One of the most crucial tasks for a CFO is fundraising. A new-age CFO needs to assume responsibility for the complete fundraising cycle — from the timing of the fundraise to creating a healthy financial picture to meeting with advisors to identifying the right strategic partners and attracting the right set of investors.

Rahul states that it is crucial for any company to hire a CFO from the start itself in order to be successful. One needs to be more agile, fast, and innovative in order to reach the business requirements and when it comes to tech startups, CFOs need to be dynamic. He explains how important it is in a tech startup, such as Moglix, to focus on key performance indicators.