Anicut Angel Fund, Axilor Ventures, and Firstcheque have invested INR 4.1 crores in CapGrid, a B2B commerce firm that specialises in the sourcing and purchase of direct-material suppliers. According to a press statement, the B2B business wants to use the new cash to improve product innovation, scale operations, and expand its personnel.

Manufacturers may simplify the difficulties of direct material sourcing and procurement by using CapGrid's AI-powered platform and network of suppliers.

According to the press release, these capabilities enable manufacturers to streamline the sourcing of high-complexity categories while consolidating the supplier base for low-complexity precision components.

CapGrid now provides services to a variety of industries, including automotive, agriculture, earthmoving, aerospace, oil and gas, consumer durables, and electric cars (EVs). CapGrid presently collaborates with over 30,000 suppliers in 15 countries, as well as a number of automobile OEMs.

Dheeraj Kumar Tiwari and Himanshu Singh Raghuvanshi created CapGrid in July 2020. Both founders are former management consultants who have spent over a decade working with manufacturers and OEMs in India, the United States, and Japan. The founders noticed a void in the market with manufacturers operating complicated direct material sourcing operations in a manual, time-consuming manner, based on their past expertise serving manufacturers and OEMs.

Dheeraj Kumar Tiwari, co-founder & CEO, CapGrid said, “strategic sourcing of direct material, which constitutes 60-70% revenues, has been largely untouched by innovation. We are building a sourcing-focused company aiming to disrupt the sourcing and purchase cycle for the factory supplies. We have been bootstrapped so far and this seed capital will go into hiring the right talent, product innovation, and expanding our fulfilment operations. We are eyeing an annual revenue of Rs 200 crore by 2022 end.

Ashvin Chadha, cofounder, Anicut Angel Fund, said, “Manufacturing industry, especially the direct material sourcing, has long been underserved. CapGrid is transforming this by addressing industry pain-points such as long-drawn parts sourcing cycle, inefficient vendor development process, unorganized supplier information, and lack of sourcing data.”

Nandan Venkatachalam, principal at Axilor Ventures added, “directly material sourcing is the largest cost centre for manufacturers and has a supply chain riddled with inefficiencies. An average manufacturer goes through a 50-step process across stakeholders and works with over 1,000 suppliers to source direct material, with each layer acting as a cost centre. CapGrid’s platform allows manufacturers to automate this process, expand their global sourcing base and reduce costs.”

“CapGrid’s SaaS solution coupled with the commerce offering gives a multitude of benefits to the OEM,” stated Kushal Bhagia, CEO of First Cheque. CapGrid Solutions' financial advisor for this financing round was CENSIE Capital Partners.