Construction materials unicorn startup Infra.Market has raised $50 million from its existing investor MARS Unicorn Fund, a joint venture from asset manager Liquidity Group and Japanese bank MUFG. MARS had invested $50 million in Infra.Market back in 2022.
Founded by Souvik Sengupta and Aaditya Sharda in 2016, Infra.Market said in a statement on Tuesday that it is aiming for the $140 billion construction materials market, targeting the infrastructure sector.
The startup is currently valued at $2.5 billion.
The deal comes “on the heels of the ongoing increase in allocation for infrastructure projects under the National Infrastructure Pipeline, which has planned projects worth $2 trillion to be deployed over the next few years,” the company said.
Infra.Market will deploy the capital to cater to newer global markets and enhance its presence across product verticals.
Speaking on the fundraising, Souvik Sengupta, Founder at Infra.Market, said the company is seeing growth opportunities as it is rapidly expanding its product portfolio and market presence, and the launch of new verticals will help it seed newer markets and create a best-in-class construction materials company out of India.
Importantly, the company divested around 10 per cent of its stake in ready-to-mix concrete company RDC Concrete (which it had acquired for $90 million in 2021) to investors led by Ashish Kacholia. The divestment was meant to enable RDC for an IPO in the near future.
Infra.Market caters to both institutional customers (B2B) and retail outlets (D2R) in the construction materials sector and has flagship stores to cater to smaller stores and dealership stores for retail customers.
“Liquidity is using technology to transform capital credit markets with unrivaled speed and accuracy. At each step in the process, our evaluation of Infra.Market showed a company delivering on its promise to remake construction and infrastructure projects across India and beyond,” said Ron Daniel, Co-Founder & CEO, Liquidity Group. MARS Unicorn fund caters to companies in Southeast Asia usually in the post-C financing rounds.
Infra.Market had reported a profit of Rs 155.2 crore in FY23 vis-a-vis Rs 185 crore in FY22 and operating revenue of Rs 11,846 crore in FY23, growing from Rs 6,236 crore in FY22. The startup’s investors include Tiger Global, Sistema, Accel Partners, Innovation Capital, among others.