NR Narayana Murthy’s Catamaran Ventures in talks to acquire stakes in Udaan

• Catamaran the private investment firm owned by Infosys has announced to acquire a minority share in Udaan E- retailer operation in the digital marketplace.
• As of now, So far Udaan has raised a total of $1.5 billion from a bunch of investors including Octahedron Capital, Moonstone Capital, and others
• This deal comes to Infosys after 2 years they increased its shareholding to 76 % in Cloudtail, which is a joint venture with Amazon.

Catamaran Ventures, the private investment firm set up by Infosys's Co-founder NR Narayana Murthy. Unconventionally the Catamaran Ventures backs up startups by providing funds in a crucial time and is currently discussing with Udaan for acquiring a small minority stake from some employees of the business-to-business marketplace.

These employees are seeking to offload their vested stock options, according to ET reports.

 According to the source, “ there is a family-based in Bengaluru seeking to acquire 2-3 %, which was valued at $3.2 billion when it received funding of $280 million from new and existing investors after it extended its Series D funding round in January.”

So far Udaan has raised a total of $1.5 billion from a bunch of investors including Octahedron Capital, Moonstone Capital, Lightspeed Venture Partners, partners of DST Global, GGV Capital, Altimeter Capital Hillhouse Capital, Footpath Ventures, Citi Ventures, and Tencent.

As of March 2021.it has a network of around and more than three million retailers and small and medium-sized businesses are constantly doing transactions on its platform. It's competing with sharks who got deep pockets such as IndiaMart, Amazon Business, JioMart, and Flipkart for a slice of India’s growing B2B e-commerce space.

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The Investment firm said that this deal took place almost two years after it amplifies its shareholding to 76 % in Cloudtail, which is a joint venture with Amazon. Cloudtail is the biggest seller of Amazon India’s online retail marketplace. A stake purchase in Udaan will provide Catamaran with an entry into the fast-growing B2B e-commerce space as well.

Responding to emailed queries on the potential stake sale, a representative for Udaan said, “As a responsible organization, we do not comment on market rumors or premature transactions.” MD Ranganath, president of Catamaran Ventures, did not respond to multiple phone calls and text messages seeking comment.

It was set up in 2016 by three former Flipkart executives Vaibhav Gupta, Amod Malviya, and Sujeet Kumar, It is helping the retailers for making purchases from wholesalers and traders digitally across categories such as apparel, electronics, pharmacy, staples, fresh food, and fast-moving consumer goods. On the Udaan around three millions from 900 cities have an account and 25000 sellers are serving customers residing in 200 cities. The company offers supply chain, lending, payments, and marketing capabilities, enabling these retailers to source from large manufacturers as well as distributors.

In January after receiving fresh funding, it announced that the fund would be allocated for expanding financing capabilities for small businesses and extend its supply chain network.

On its part, Catamaran has to date invested in a range of businesses including the National Stock Exchange, edtech portal Udemy, insurance seller Acko, Paperboat maker Hector Beverages, Manipal Global, and Ace Creative Learning, among others. According to the fund’s website, it manages over $1 billion acro...

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