The First Indian Couple To Have Their Own Unicorn

A pair of husband and wife became the country's very first pair to create their individual firms into unicorns with a whopping amount of $1 billion valuation.

Oxyzo Financial Services, a digital lending company co-founded by Ruchi Kalra, announced on Wednesday that it has raised $200 million in its first round of funding, backed by Alpha Wave Global, Tiger Global Management, Norwest Venture Partners, reported NDTV.

Her husband Asish Mohapatra's OfBusiness, which received investment from SoftBank Group Corporation had attained the same valuation within the time period of less than a year.

Ruchi Kalra, 38 years old, and Mr Mohapatra, 41 years old, met while working at McKinsey & Co. Ruchi and her husband both have completed their graduation from Indian Institute of Technology. Both startups are profitable, which may be a rare feat for a young startup.

Ruchi is that the CEO of Oxyzo, whilst Mr. Mohapatra is that the CEO of OfBusiness. While Oxyzo was also funded by Matrix Partners and Creation Investments in one among the most important Series. Ms Kalra, Mr Mohapatra, and three others founded Oxyzo in 2017 as an outgrowth of the couple's initial firm, OfBusiness, which they established with three others in early 2016.

In a credit-starved economy where small and medium businesses seek to access capital , Oxyzo employs technology to analyse data and provides purchase finance to firms.

Small and medium-sized firms can get bulk raw materials like steel, diesel, food grains, and industrial chemicals from OfBusiness, formerly referred to as OFB Tech Pvt. due to Mr Mohapatra, it had been valued at over $1 billion when SoftBank et al. invested in April of last year. consistent with him, the startup's valuation hit around $5 billion in December when SoftBank et al. invested extra money in it.

Ms Kalra, a partner at McKinsey, left the firm to start out a business together with her husband, who had left risk capital firm Matrix. She explained that they both had an itch to travel out and construct something.

Ms Kalra explained that the 2 firms operate independently, with separate offices and personnel. They do, however, have similar businesses in mind, like manufacturing and infrastructure subcontracting. However, Gurgaon is home to both of them.