This Indian IPO among one of Asia’s biggest to watch out for this year
OfBusiness was founded in 2016 and later the start-up backing from Tiger Global and SoftBank Group Corp.
The IPO of Indian startup OfBusiness is one of the keenly awaited issues in Asia, according to Bloomberg. OfBusiness, a startup founded by entrepreneurs Ruchi Kalra and Asish Mohapatra to help Indian enterprises buy bulk raw materials, could file initial listing documents around October, Bloomberg had reported earlier citing sources.
Kalra, 38, and Mohapatra, 41, this year became the country’s first husband-and-wife team to build their respective startups into enterprises with at least a $1 billion valuation, also known as unicorns.
They co-founded OfBusiness, formally known as OFB Tech Pvt., and began operations in 2016. The couple later won backing from Tiger Global and SoftBank Group Corp. They also helped create Oxyzo Financial Services, which provides digital credit and turned unicorn in its maiden funding of $200 million last month.
Asish Mohapatra is chief executive officer of OfBusiness while Kalra is CEO of Oxyzo. OfBusiness helps companies, particularly in the manufacturing and infrastructure segments, purchase metals, chemicals, agricultural commodities and building materials, helping them get better pricing and more efficient deliveries. It also helps these enterprises scope out new growth opportunities.
“The companies are both ready for public markets and at the right, opportune time, over the six months to two-year period, you will see both companies go public," Kalra told Bloomberg Television in an interview earlier.
OfBusiness is hoping for a higher valuation than the $5 billion it obtained during its most recent funding round in late 2021, Bloomberg had reported. OfBusiness is projecting a revenue run rate by the financial year ending March 2023 of $6 billion and it’s already profitable, the report said.
However, the second half of 2022 is likely to be subdued for equity capital markets, especially for initial public offerings (IPOs) with a volatile stock market being one of many macroeconomic headwinds, experts said.
Overall fundraising in the equity capital markets dropped to ₹1.01 trillion in the first half of calendar year 2022, compared to a fundraising of ₹1.26 trillion the same period last year, according to data from primary markets tracker Prime Database.
This includes fundraising across IPOs, qualified institutional placements (QIP), rights issues, InvITs, REITs, and preferential allotments.
Here are among the largest potential Asian listings for the second half of 2022, according to Bloomberg
Syngenta Group, owned by China National Chemical Corp
Thai Beverage Pcl’s brewery unit BeerCo
South Korean online-only bank K Bank
Rakuten Bank, the banking arm of Japanese online retailer Rakuten Group Inc
China Tourism Group Duty Free Corp.
Ant Group Co.
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