Husband and spouse entrepreneurs mint personal unicorns inside a yr

An Indian couple turned the nation’s first husband and spouse to construct their respective startups into enterprises with a minimum of $1 billion valuation, also called unicorns.

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Oxyzo Financial Services, a digital lending startup co-founded by Ruchi Kalra, stated Wednesday it hit the milestone with its maiden fundraising spherical of $200 million led by Alpha Wave Global, Tiger Global Management, Norwest Venture Partners and others. Less than a yr earlier, her husband Asish Mohapatra’s OfBusiness reached the identical valuation after backing from SoftBank Group Corp. and others.

Kalra, 38, and Mohapatra, 41, are alums of Indian Institute of Technology and met whereas working at McKinsey & Co. Both startups are worthwhile, an uncommon feat for younger development corporations. Kalra is the chief government officer of Oxyzo whereas Mohapatra is the CEO at OfBusiness.

Matrix Partners and Creation Investments additionally invested in Oxyzo in what is likely one of the largest Series A rounds in India’s startup business.

Oxyzo, a mix of the phrases oxygen and ozone, was based by Kalra, Mohapatra and three others in 2017 as an offshoot of the couple’s first startup, OfBusiness, which they began together with three others in early 2016. Oxyzo makes use of know-how to crunch information and supply buy financing to companies, giving out cash-flow based mostly loans in a credit-starved nation the place small and medium companies wrestle to get working capital.

OfBusiness, formally referred to as OFB Tech Pvt., provides bulk uncooked supplies comparable to metal, diesel, meals grains and industrial chemical compounds to small and medium-sized companies. Its valuation surpassed $1 billion when SoftBank and others invested in April final yr, in line with Mohapatra. In December, the startup’s valuation reached practically $5 billion as SoftBank and others put extra money into it, he stated through cellphone.

Kalra, who was a companion at McKinsey, left the agency to affix entrepreneurial forces together with her husband, who exited venture-capital firm Matrix. “We both had an itch to go out and build something,” she stated.

The two startups run individually with completely different workplaces and groups, Kalra stated. However, they aim the identical industries comparable to manufacturing and infrastructure sub-contracting. Both are based mostly in Gurgaon, within the suburbs of New Delhi.

Oxyzo has greater than 500 workers and a knowledge warehouse specialising in provide chain analytics. It has disbursed over $2 billion in loans and has been worthwhile since its inception.

In the assertion, investor Norwest described Kalra because the nation’s “first female founder in India of a profitable, fintech unicorn.”