OfBusiness valued at $5 billion, eyes 2022 IPO

OfBusiness plans to file its papers for an Initial Public Offering (IPO) by late-2022

Business-to-business commerce and lending platform OfBusiness said on December 20 that it had raised $325 million led by existing investors Alpha Wave Global, Tiger Global Management and SoftBank. At $5 billion, OfBusiness’ valuation has more than quadrupled in the last year, led by an unprecedented funding boom.

OfBusiness now plans to file its papers for an Initial Public Offering (IPO) by late-2022, eyeing a domestic listing by the end of the year, co-founder and CEO Asish Mohapatra told Moneycontrol. It plans to appoint investment bankers for its IPO by March-June next year.

It could be valued at $10-15 billion when it goes public, said two people aware of the matter, although Mohapatra could not comment on this.

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For FY22, OfBusiness’ commerce arm will have quadrupled revenue to $1.7 billion with a net profit of $42.5 million while its lending arm will have doubled revenue to $360 million and a profit of $21.6 million, Mohapatra said.

“We are profitable, and going public is the natural next step. Our commerce and lending businesses will continue to grow at 4x and 2x respectively the year after next as well. There is still a long way to go given the depth and unorganized fragmented market structure of B2B in India. We believe that we are in the nascence of the B2B revolution in the country,” he said.

Its other investors include Norwest Venture Partners, Creation Investments, Matrix Partners India, Marshall Wace, Zodius and Panthera Growth Fund.

In the current round, Creation, Matrix and Zodius sold about $35 million each of secondary shares to Alpha Wave and others, while 80 employees also sold shares (Employee Stock Options) to investors, giving them a financial windfall.

The company’s software platform BidAssist, which helps find government tenders for small businesses, has 2.7 million users, the company said.

B2B platforms have received significant investor interest this year, and companies have seen their valuations jump multifold every few months, a previously unheard of phenomenon.

This is OfBusiness' fourth funding round in 2021. It was valued at $800 million in April, followed by $1.5 billion in July, $3 billion in September and $5 billion currently.

Infra.market, which operates a similar platform has seen a similar journey. It is raising its third round this year at a valuation of $4.5 billion, Moneycontrol first reported last month. It was valued at $1 billion in March.