Paypal incubatee, Kobster raises funding from Splice to go pan-India with its office supplies ecommerce platform
Chennai based Kobster has raised undisclosed amount of seed funding from Splice Advisors. Splice Advisors recently invested in Doctor C a Hyderabad based healthcare e-commerce startup, and has over 26 investments in various companies in its portfolio. Splice’s latest investment, Kobster.com provides all kinds of business consumables through its online retail platform to corporates across India. Kobster.com was founded by Mohan G, Karthik R and Vineet Neeraj who earlier worked at Cognizant and HCL. The startup aims to consumarize the corporate procurement process and change the way corporates shop for their office needs by leveraging the power of e-commerce.
The latest round of funding will be used for growth and expansion. Vineet Neeraj told YourStory ,“funds are mainly used for tech development, expanding to different cities, strengthening supply chain and acquiring more customers.”
At present Kobster is operating in Chennai and Bengaluru. The startup wants to go pan India in the next 1.5 years by expanding to at least 5-6 different cities. Indian business-to-business (B2B) market is worth $300 billion which will expand to $700 billion by 2020. Kobster.com is in the unique and interesting space where almost 95% of the market is unorganized. Kobster is trying to organize this market with the help of technology and customer service. The startup also provides an exclusive e-procurement platform to corporate, providing features like smooth ordering platform, inventory management, spend management, cost optimization suggestions, analytics and centralized invoicing.
Kobster’s office supplies
Kobster.com provides all kinds of business consumables through its online platform to corporate across. The supply ranges from file and folders to desk accessories to laptop bags and computer accessories. Their range includes, stationery supplies, pen, pencils, markers, highlighters, computer accessories, corporate gifts, computer hardware, computer peripherals, office furniture, cleaning equipment, maintenance equipment, new year diaries, house ksupplies, networking components, paper products, routers and electronic safe.
Incubated by PayPal StartTank Chennai
Vineet Neeraj says “Kobster has been incubated by PayPal and TiE Chennai. PayPal provides a cost and obligation-free environment for the selected start-ups to evolve. TiE Chennai members have helped us in refining our business model, customer acquisition strategy and online marketing.”
Kobster.com’s clients include Hyundai, Bhadra, SabMiller, Hospira, ABB, BGR Energy and LatentView. In the future, Kobster will be exploring various business specific products like industrial supplies, medical supplies etc.
Mobile is not making its presence felt on corporate shopping as much as with individual consumers. “As we are targeting mainly corporate customers, mobile shopping has not really picked up in this space but we are sure the future is mobile commerce,” adds Vineet.
Website: http://www.kobster.com/
