Indian e-commerce firm Udaan raised $340 million to strengthen its supply chain and boost vendor partnerships ahead of a stock market debut planned for 2025. The Series E round was done via a combination of fresh equity and conversion of debt, the Bangalore-based company said in a statement Thursday. The round was led by M&G Plc and existing investors including Lightspeed Venture Partners and DST Global participated. The round "fully funds our business plan," Vaibhav Gupta, Udaan co-founder and chief executive officer, said in the statement. "It enables our continued journey of growth and profitability, positioning us well to be public-market ready in the next 12-18 months." Udaan, which competes with Reliance Industries Ltd. and Walmart Inc.'s Flipkart in helping smaller merchants source their goods, runs an online marketplace and logistics networks that help mum-and-pop stores get quicker deliveries and cut traditional middlemen out. That kind of digital-led wholesale business, though a very small part of India's overall retail market, is expected to swell to $150 billion in sales in a decade, according to McKinsey & Co. The startup targets an initial public offering in 2025, though it's yet to decide whether it will do so in India or overseas, Gupta told Bloomberg News last month. Udaan was founded in 2016 by three engineers who previously worked at Flipkart. The trio together ran the company until Gupta, one of the founders, took over as CEO in 2021. The other two founders — Amod Malviya and Sujeet Kumar — are board members.

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