Inventus Capital Funded Startup Power2sme Powers SMEs' Growth
Power2sme is a trusted business partner that functions as a buyer’s club for SMEs and helps them to benefit from the economies of scale through collective buying from a large network of vendors and manufacturers. The company pools the demand of several SMEs, which enables it to obtain the best possible prices for their procurement needs from a large pool of suppliers. Power2sme thus allows its customers to focus on their core business of driving growth and expansion. The purchase platform is available free of charge through a simple registration process.“We provide end-to-end services to SMEs that include obtaining the best pricing for their procurement needs, providing door step delivery of the material, online tracking of orders and flexible payment options. We are measuring our business performance on multiple parameters. The most relevant metrics for us include monthly revenue, gross margin, number of SME transacting with us monthly, frequency of their monthly transactions, repeat business and the segments that we are opening up month on month,” says R. Narayan, Founder-CEO, Power2sme.
Team Power2sme
R. Narayan as the Founder & Chief Executive Officer is responsible for the overall profitability & performance of Power2sme. A qualified Cost Accountant, Narayan brings on board more than 24 years of general management and sales & marketing experience. Prior to the formation of power2sme, he was the founder and CEO of Denave, India's largest technology powered sales enabling Services Company. Deepak Gupta is the VP Marketing and Product. He has over 13 years of experience in sales, strategy and corporate development across mobile, eCommerce, media & enterprise businesses. Deepak is a graduate in Economics from Delhi University and has done his MBA in marketing & finance from IIM Bangalore. Kapil M Kumar is VP Business Development and Sales with both Topline & Bottom line responsibilities. He is a management graduate and a degree in Law from University of Delhi. Kapil brings more than 18 years of experience and was part of the core team in establishing businesses in India for Carrier Refrigeration, Chevron India & Sify Technologies, in various leadership capacities. Sumit Bhatia is responsible for the development and execution of our global commodity sourcing strategy. His key responsibilities include developing relationships with key suppliers, negotiation of contracts, driving continuous improvement in supplier base and development of the Supply Chain Logistic network with multiple distribution centres.
Operations and Traction
Power2sme started its operations in Delhi NCR region and now have opened offices in Mumbai and Pune. The firm is now aggressively expanding across North, West and South India and opening up regional offices in these regions. Its current focus is on servicing manufacturing, precision engineering, automotive OEM and the construction sectors at present and it plans to expand the services to other sectors of the economy over the next 18 months. “We started our activities in January 2012.We are strong believers in the potential of India's SME market, and our objective is to expand our business with the ability to cater to SMEs across multiple sectors. We plan to exit the current FY with over 500 million INR in sales. We expect to break even in FY 2013-14. We are currently growing at a rate of 100% month on month,” adds Narayan.
Funding
Power2sme started in January 2012 and received INR 100 million commitment from Inventus Capital Partners in June2012. The company started with a seed capital of INR 20 million. Zanskar Advisors was the exclusive financial advisor to power2sme for this transaction. “Also, Inventus Capital Partners have fully supported our vision as a trusted business partner with a mandate to make SMEs more competitive in their business. The recent funding from Inventus Capital Partners will act as a booster for rapid expansion in the Indian market and enhance the product offering,” adds Kapil.
Challenges faced by SMEs and Power2sme’s offerings:
- Limited size and inefficient negotiation capability hampers ability to get optimum procurement prices – by offering them a buying club, Power2sme mitigates this inability
- Most SME’s are undercapitalized – Power2sme works closely with them in ways that reduces their working capital needs
- Lack of options in raw materials – Power2sme opens up choices to the SMEs
“We are focused on working with large, established and trusted suppliers so our customers are assured of the quality of the product that they buy from us. We are supplying both domestic as well as MNC brands. We are supplying products from supplier like IOCL, Haldia Petrochemical, GAIL, SAIL, Ultra Tech cement, Dulux, Berger, Nerolac Paints, Mitsubishi Chemicals, to name a few. In addition to this, we are also experimenting with importing raw materials for a key industry in India which has acute shortage of certain core materials,” says Narayan.
If you are a startup/SME you should checkout Power2sme’s offerings!
[Photo courtesy: Sulekha]
