Bangladesh's B2B start-up Sindabad.com gets $4 mn funding from Aavishkaar

Sindabad.com, a Dhaka-based e-commerce company, has secured $4.15 million in Series-A funding from Aavishkaar Frontier Fund, which is managed by impact investment firm Aavishkaar.

Sindabad.com, promoted by Zero Gravity Ventures Limited, is Bangladesh's first and largest B2B e-commerce service. It provides businesses like offices and factories a platform for their manufacturing and consumption purchases with direct-to-office deliveries. 

Sindabad.com has leading financial Institutions, raw material manufacturers, pharmaceuticals and local conglomerates in its customer portfolio. 

 “We have seen approximately 15% month-on-month growth on Sindabad.com, and currently have more than 500 corporate and 2,000 small companies as our customers,” said Zeeshan Kingshuk Huq, co-Founder and CEO of the company, about the funding.

“We are looking to incorporate best practices and collaborate with similar companies and start-ups in the region who have already succeeded in the B2B space,” said Asif Zahir, Co-Founder and Managing Director, Zero Gravity. 

Zero Gravity has an employee strength of nearly 250 and has already established 3 modern warehouses and own delivery fleet in various parts of Dhaka. 

”Aavishkaar believes Sindabad.com has the potential to rewrite the B2B transaction model for corporates and SMEs in Bangladesh. We look forward to working with the team in fine-tuning strategy and scaling up the business.” said Sanchayan Chakraborty, partner at Aavishkaar.  

Aavishkaar is an active investor in early and growth stage enterprises in India and broader Asia, practicing an entrepreneurship based approach to development; this is the third investment by Aavishkaar in Bangladesh.

Earlier, Frontier Fund – a Bangladesh-focused private equity fund managed by Brummer & Partners Bangladesh invested in the company. Frontier has invested in ten different companies in diversified sectors such as retail, automotive, pharmaceuticals, white-goods, raw material goods manufacturers and online marketplace. 

Bangladesh currently has more than 250 websites in e-commerce and an estimated 10,000 Facebook-based shops. However, only a handful are attracting the funding required to take the companies beyond the boot-strap stage. With the kind of investment a global company is putting into Zero Gravity, experts see the e-Commerce space gaining momentum and maturity.