Udaan’s Valuation Slumps by Almost Half to $1.8 Billion in Down Round
- ByStartupStory | January 16, 2024
Bengaluru-based B2B ecommerce unicorn Udaan has seen a significant drop in its valuation, reportedly falling to around $1.8 billion in a down round, nearly half of its last valuation of $3.2 billion in January 2021.
A down round occurs when a company raises funds at a lower valuation than in its previous round. Udaan raised $340 million in its Series E funding round in December 2023, led by UK-based M&G Prudential, with Lightspeed Venture Partners and DST Global participating. This round included fresh equity investment and the conversion of existing debt into equity.
Founded by Vaibhav Gupta, Sujeet Kumar, and Amod Malviya, Udaan specializes in supply chain and logistics operations for B2B trade. It claims to facilitate daily deliveries across over 1,000 cities and 12,500 pin codes through udaanExpress and has notable backers like Lightspeed, Microsoft, and Tencent.
Despite the recent funding, Udaan reportedly let go of approximately 120 employees within a week of the Series E round. A spokesperson for the company mentioned that while they have made progress in building a profitable business, certain interventions have led to redundancies.
According to reports, Udaan’s CEO Vaibhav Gupta has stressed the importance of cost reduction and operational targets, aiming for operational profitability within the next two quarters. This development comes amid a trend where other unicorns, like US-based edtech major BYJU’S, have also faced devaluation, with BlackRock reducing its valuation of BYJU’S by about 95% from $22 billion to $1 billion.
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