Two unicorns in a year – Husband & wife entrepreneurs make history

Gurgaon -An Indian entrepreneur couple has made history by building their respective startups and turning them into unicorns (enterprises with valuation of at least $1 billion). The two startups have been established independently with different teams and offices, but targeting the same industry.

On Wednesday, Oxyzo Financial Services, a digital lending startup co-founded by Ruchi Kalra, has hit the milestone of $1 billion evaluation with its maiden fundraising round of $200 million led by Alpha Wave Global, Tiger Global Management, Norwest Venture Partners and others.

Her husband Asish Mohapatra, less than a year ago had reached the same evaluation of his company OfBusiness after receiving backing from SoftBank Group Corp. and others.  

Mohapatra, 41, and Kalra, 38, are both alumni of prestigious IIT (Indian Institute of Technology) and had met while working McKinsey & Co. Kalra is the chief executive officer of Oxyzo while Mohapatra is the CEO at OfBusiness, both companies said to be extremely profitable, an unusual feat for startups.

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Oxyzo was founded in 2017 by Kalra, Mohapatra and three others. On the other hand, OfBusiness was started in 2016 by them along with three others. Oxyzo uses “technology to crunch data and provide purchase financing to businesses, giving out cash-flow based loans in a credit-starved country where small and medium businesses struggle to get working capital”. OfBusiness, known formally as OFB Tech Pvt “supplies bulk raw materials such as steel, diesel, food grains and industrial chemicals to small and medium-sized businesses”. OfBusiness surpassed valuation of $1 billion in April last year when SoftBank and others invested in the business. In December, after SoftBank and others invested more in the company its valuation reached around $5 billion.

Both the companies are based in Gurgaon but stationed in different offices and teams. Oxyzo has over 500 employees and a data warehouse that is specialising in supply chain analytics.