Murugappa, TVS groups invest in Industrybuying, a B2B online marketplace for industrial material

Corresponding to the trend of Individuals from Family Businesses emerging as New Age Investors

Family members of Murugappa and TVS families have invested an undisclosed amount in Industrybuying.com, an e-commerce B2B platform, featuring over 300,000 products on its platform.

The funding round saw participation from Vellayan Subbiah, managing director, Chola Finance, Muthu Murugappan, Business Head Nutraceuticals - EID Parry, Arun Venkatachalam, Angel Investor; and Arathi Krishna, JMD Sundram Fasteners from TVS group.

The funds will be used for further development of the platform, establish a nationwide sales force, increase its vendor base and develop a full suite of digital offerings for B2B brands.

Swati Gupta, Co-Founder, Industrybuying.com said: "Our focus is to build a scaled and profitable business. We are relentlessly working towards creating a robust technology back-end and a large ecosystem of vendors to help eliminate the pain-points of buyers. It's great to have strategic investors like Murugappa and TVS groups on board. Their backing of Industrybuying at such an early stage will propel us to the next orbit of growth."

This funding underlines the trend of Family Owned Businesses emerging as investors. Arun has previously financed startups like ZoomCar, Firstouch Mobile, Autolotto&Posist etc.

Arathi Krishna, Joint Managing Director at Sundram Fasteners, said: "B2B Ecommerce is going to be the next big thing in India. It's a huge untapped market which is being addressed by Industrybuying. They have managed to build a formidable team to take up this challenge as well. We are really excited to be a part of their continuing growth."

Similarly, commenting on the involvement of leading corporates in b2b startups, Vani Kola(MD at Kalaari Capital) said: "B2B e-commerce is a relatively new concept in India and appears to be a lucrative segment to the investors at present. This amalgamation of so many experts from across industry is an opportunity for the company and the founders to leverage each other's learning from B2C e-commerce and to apply them to this wave of disruption in the B2B space."

Although the amount of funds raised has not been revealed yet, through this investment, the company now has access to these investors as advisors who can strategically guide the company on expansion and distribution of product offerings, said the company.