Zetwerk, an 18-month-old Indian B2B marketplace for manufacturing items, raises $32M – TechCrunch

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Zetwerk, an Indian business-to-business marketplace for manufacturing items, has closed a significantly large financing round as it scales its operations in the nation and also helps local businesses find customers overseas.
The 18-month-old startup said on Wednesday it has raised $32 million in a Series B financing round led by Lightspeed and Greenoaks Capital.
Zetwerk co-founder and chief executive Amrit Acharya told TechCrunch in an interview that the startup has also raised about $14.2 million in debt from a consortium of banks, and others.
Existing investors Accel, Sequoia India and Kae Capital also participated in the round, which pushes the Bangalore-based startup’s total raise to date to about $41 million.
The startup connects OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) and EPC (engineering procurement construction) customers with manufacturing small-businesses and enterprises.
The startup operates to serve customers in fabrication, machining, casting and forging businesses.
Currently, Zetwerk works with more than 100 enterprises and 1,500 small and medium-sized businesses.
Once a firm has placed an order, Zetwerk allows them to keep a tab on the progress of manufacturing and then the shipping.
This “hand-holding” is crucial, as in this line of business, manufacturing and shipping typically take more than two to three months.
Zetwerk has also enabled manufacturers in India to discover and find clients overseas.
Today, manufacturers on the platform export their goods to North America and Southeast Asia, Acharya said.
“India has a lot of depth in manufacturing, but much of it has not been tapped well,” he said.
Helping these manufacturing workshops find clients online is still a new phenomenon in the nation.
Acharya said Zetwerk largely competes with domain project consultants in the offline work.

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