Business-to-Business Ecommerce Platforms Udaan One of its co-founders said, Vaibhav Gupta, will be named as the company’s chief executive, as the startup prepares to go public in the next 18-24 months.

Amod Malviya And Sujeet KumarThe other two co-founders will support the effective functioning of the “CEO-led organization” and continue to shape strategic roadmaps and investment decisions as active board members, the company said in a press statement issued Friday.

These changes are effective from September 10.

Kumar, Gupta and Malviya, who have previously worked in senior roles at Flipkart, started Udaan in 2016. Malviya is focusing on technology, Gupta was focusing on business and finance. In his new role, all business assignments will report to Gupta. Malviya will continue his focus on the technology and product portfolios and will continue to work on the company’s external relationships alongside Kumar Gupta.

Udaan’s parent company is domiciled in Singapore and the initial public offering is likely to take place outside India. It has held talks with investment bankers to understand and execute its IPO plans, but it has not mandated anyone to IPO yet.

In its statement, Udaan said that its co-founders have always viewed the company as an institution that is professionally run and will go beyond them. The Bengaluru-based startup, which is valued at $3 billion, said, “As part of this vision, they combined a strong and shared vision with their expertise to build an admirable and professionally driven institution.” “This model enabled speed, allowed rapid experimentation and learning – contributing to a strong business foundation and depth of leadership,” the statement said.

On his appointment as CEO, Gupta said it is important for the company to lay the right foundation as it looks at its next phase of growth. “It is with this objective that this structure (the new CEO) has been created that will help the organization grow, enhance agility and efficiency, drive innovation and bring us closer to the customer,” he said.

Kumar and Malaviya said that the focus of UDAN for the next few years will be on strengthening governance and driving innovation, capabilities, systems and processes, with a talent pipeline to capitalize on the huge opportunity in India (non-metro market). Special attention will be given to construction. country) provides. “What we have achieved in the last five years is just the tip of the iceberg. As a team, we look forward to building on what has already been created and making Udaan another world-class institution from India,” They said.

In an interview to ET in July, Kumar and Gupta had said:
The flight had fully recovered to pre-Covid-19 second wave level With an annual Gross Merchandise Value (GMV) in the range of $4-5 billion. In 2020, Udaan saw a GMV of around $3 billion.

Pharmaceuticals and food have been the two biggest categories since the outbreak of the pandemic. It also deals with sectors such as fashion, electronics and appliances, home and kitchen, footwear and electrical.

earlier this year,
Udaan raises $280 million as an extension to its $585 million funding round in October 2019. In total, it has now raised over $1 billion from investors such as DST Global, GGV Capital, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Altimeter Capital and Tencent.

Udaan is also disbursing nearly $1 billion of capital through its lending platform in partnership with banks and NBFCs as demand for capital increases with more buyers coming online. It has NBFC license.

The firm has over 3 million users, 1.7 million retailers and 30,000 sellers on its platform.