Tolexo, an online marketplace that makes access to industrial goods easy

While the e-commerce space is inundated with B2C players, there are some players in the B2B space making access to industrial goods easy for manufacturers, intermediaries and end users alike. One such startup is Tolexo that has catered to 2 lakh businesses in more than 900 cities from its online platform within a year of launch. It is available across platforms including web, WAP, Android and iOS. The company was founded by Brijesh Agrawal, who had co-founded IndiaMART at the age of 20; Navneet Rai, a serial entrepreneur with 12 years of experience in building and growing companies with multi-crore revenues; Harsh Kundra, a veteran in the industry and who previously held the position of CTO at Jabong.com. While they’ve been mulling over the idea since 2010, Tolexo was formally formed in 2013. “It was in late 2013, that we really got down to evaluating the model deeply and after a few months of meeting with potential customers & sellers, we threw our hat in the ring in 2014,” said Agrawal. Tolexo is a team of about 400 people. “The concept is different from a regular e-commerce model in broadly two spheres - first, that it is focused on businesses and not consumers; second, our vision is to build this as an eco-system rather than just an e-commerce platform,” he explained. Its revenue comes from the marketing fee charged to sellers for helping them sell through the platform. “Over a period of time we see adding a layer of technology and financial services on top of this,” Agrawal adds. Tolexo is completely funded by IndiaMART. IndiaMART recently raised Rs 150 crore in its latest financing round led by UK-based tech venture fund Amadeus Capital along with Quona Capital, Westbridge Capital. Talking about expanding consumer reach, he points out, “Majorly, sellers would be given access to up to-date technology and expertise of promoting their finished product to a wider audience in an organised way. This expertise, in turn helps small businesses to reach out to the target audiences in a stream lined manner.” For the year 2016, Tolexo aims to achieve 10x growth including increasing the number of businesses partners (SMEs) to 1 million, expanding to more cities and increasing the number of categories.