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Global B2B E-Commerce Platform Bzaar Raises $4Mn Funding

The round also includes notable angel investors Binny Bansal (co-founder of Flipkart), Sameer Nigam & Rahul Chari (co-founders of PhonePe), Lee Fixel (founder of Addition), and Ashish Gupta (MD and co-founder of Helion Ventures).

Bzaar, a global B2B e-commerce marketplace, has announced a recent seed funding of $4 million, led by Canaan Partners. Through its technology platform, Bzaar enables small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) in India and Southeast Asia to connect directly with buyers across the world, facilitating cross-border trust to boost international commerce.

The round also includes notable angel investors Binny Bansal (co-founder of Flipkart), Sameer Nigam & Rahul Chari (co-founders of PhonePe), Lee Fixel (founder of Addition), and Ashish Gupta (MD and co-founder of Helion Ventures).

Co-founded by Nishant Verman and Prasanth Nair earlier this year (February 2021), Bzaar is a digital global wholesale marketplace enabling small retailers across the world to buy unique, high-quality, well-curated products from India and Southeast Asia. Bzaar features over 15,000+ products across 50+ verticals, including lifestyle, home, accessories, apparel, jewelry from value-based brands and sellers in India – all of which can be ordered online directly by retailers in more than 100 countries at competitive prices. Bzaar handles the entire process, including logistics and shipping, to ensure on-time, as-promised delivery right to the doorstep.

Historically, larger retail chains have set up on-ground sourcing teams or worked with buying houses to source in volume. However, SMBs struggle due to lack of access to such infrastructure – having to access suppliers through poorly-vetted trade directories or via offline intermediaries. Bzaar digitally enables every small and medium business to have the same advantages as large ones for international sourcing. Whether it is the selection of products, prices, shipping time, or payment terms, Bzaar believes that every business – regardless of size or location – should have equal access to the vast sourcing opportunities that the global supply chain offers.

Nishant Verman, Co-founder and CEO, Bzaar, said, “The pandemic has accelerated the need for supply-chain diversification and triggered a massive surge in businesses looking to expand internationally. Currently, if you’re a small business in India looking to start or accelerate your exports business, the infrastructure is largely offline and opaque or mostly non-existent. Bzaar democratizes exporting from India & Southeast Asia so that the region’s in-demand products are accessible at a global scale.”

“This new funding will accelerate Bzaar’s progress in three critical areas – bringing more verified, export-ready manufacturers onto the platform; solving for logistics, quality control, and packaging to deliver predictable and hassle-free sourcing experience; and finally strengthening their India operations to make their products easily accessible to our buyers,” he further added.

Joydeep Bhattacharyya, General Partner – Canaan, said, “Today, the US is already the largest export market for Indian goods, representing 17% of total goods exports. Yet no online platforms have really existed for US-based SMBs to discover trusted suppliers, purchase large quantities, and manage the entire buying process. That’s exactly why Bzaar exists and why we’re excited to lead their seed round. Bzaar is solving long-standing problems that have existed on both the demand and supply sides and the digital transformation required to make international wholesale transactions a seamless online experience.”

Bazaar has witnessed a 20x increase in the number of sellers using its platform in the last 6 months. The startup is led by seasoned e-commerce leaders who worked previously at Flipkart, Amazon, and Alibaba. Bzaar is a natural intersection of the Founders’ backgrounds – Nishant Verman was head of corporate development at Flipkart, India’s largest e-commerce marketplace, where he spearheaded the company’s $16B acquisition by Walmart. Prasanth Nair comes with over two decades of experience in building large-scale enterprise and internet platforms. He led engineering and product teams at Amazon and Flipkart, and subsequently built Alibaba’s B2C cross-border platform Lazada in Singapore.

Source: Business World

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