Power2SME raises a fresh round of funding from Accel Partners

Founded by R. Narayan in 2011, Power2SME is a group buying site targeted at small and medium enterprises. It supplies inks, steel, polymers, paints and chemicals & additives to SMEs, procuring these in bulk from manufacturers. Power2SME started with a seed round from Inventus Capital and then Kalaari Capital recently infused a series A worth INR 10 crores. In an announcement today, Accel Partners has invested in Power2SME.Narayana confirmed the news but the details of the investment haven't been disclosed. Sources have estimated the deal size to be worth of $6 million. Narayan expects Power2SME to be a Rs. 150 crore business next year. And in five years, he believes that becoming a billion dollar company is a good possibility (read complete story).

A veteran entrepreneur, Narayan has learnt it the hard way. Having spent a good time in the corporate world, Narayan was the head of SME channel distribution for Microsoft before he quit and started up Denave, a sales enabling services company which has been running for 14 years. The idea to start Power2SME came about during Narayan’s experience on the field. He says, “I used to deal with both the SME and enterprise segments. I would see a request coming in from an SME for a laptop, which would be quoted at Rs. 42,000. A similar request from a large enterprise, say SBI, would receive a quote of Rs. 28,000.” With 70% of Indian job market powered by SMEs, Narayan felt this was an unfair gap between SMEs and enterprises.

This funding round from Accel will further help expand Power2SME and get more manufacturers on board.

More on their website and read our detailed interview with R. Narayana.