Dubai-based Fintech startup Invoice Bazaar has invested an undisclosed amount in online documentation exchange platform ODeX. The company plans to use the investment for expansion across Middle East as well as product development, the company said in a statement. ODeX is already working with Invoice Bazaar for enabling payment settlements for shipping firms. The company is trying to solve the problem of supply chain finance in the shipping industry.
Anand Nagaraj, CEO of Invoice Bazaar said, “This is purely a strategic investment. ODeX has a strong management team with deep understanding of the shipping ecosystem. We are seeking to leverage their platform to expand our presence in the shipping niche.”
After starting operations in Dubai, Invoice Bazaar has now expanded to south-east Asia.
Founded by Liji Nowal, Vinit Shetty, Anand Raman, Kapil Patel and Binai Thoppil, ODeX is an online exchange platform in the shipping sector, that enables workflow automation, payments automation and is now working with the early payments model with Invoice Bazaar. In last 30 months, since its inception, the company has hadded shipping lines including COSCO Shipping, CMA CGM, Hapag-Llyod, Hamburg Sud, with clients including Reliance, TATA Group, CEAT, Vedanta, DHL and Godrej.
Invoice Bazaar is looking to expand its supply chain finance through this acquisition, while the company claims to have crossed the $27 million mark in early payments.
The press release states that ODeX has processed over 4 million documents in the last one year, since its inception, in India. The company further claims to have 55 percent of cargo weight in documents.
Shipping is a $7 trillion economy and business from documentation automation is a multi-billion dollar opportunity. 556 million containers (TeU’s) carried across the world generates 11 billion documents, which indeed creates an opportunity for companies to tap in.
