Jungle Ventures is excited to announce that Moglix, having more than tripled its value in just the past 2 years, has now become a Unicorn in 2021.
We have always believed that hidden in the big tech workforce in Southeast Asia, there are several thousand extremely talented entrepreneurs waiting to stretch their legs. Today the likes of Google, FB, Grab, Gojek, Shopee, and a dozen other tech giants employ over two hundred and fifty thousand employees in South East Asia. These ‘academy’ companies have created over six thousand founders in just the last 5 years already and the pace of startup teams spinning out of these high-quality and scale-up group of companies is only accelerating.
Jungle got introduced to Rahul soon after we founded our firm in 2012 & even at that first meeting we recognized that this ex-Google executive was a man on a mission. Rahul was eager to contribute and learn about the start-up world, which we enabled through our, now decade-long Venture Partner Program. He had his mind set on building a big multi-billion dollar business himself someday and eventually decided to focus on the opportunity of digitizing a truly broken industry- purchasing of industrial goods in South Asia which is over $25Bn in GMV based TAM. He set his course in late 2014 and the first iteration of the name was Mogli Labs, with Moglix being their first product. Jungle and Accel were the first investors in his business. The internal humour was that we had a ‘Mo(w)gli in the Jungle’!
Moglix’s model was unique- Whilst everyone else was building a listing or marketplace model, we had started testing market acceptance for the concept of a SAAS based Marketplace model as early as 2014. We were certainly the first from Asia and probably one of earliest ones globally. (Check this article by leading SAAS investor Point Nine Capital in 2015 that points towards the emergence of this new class of software + e-commerce companies).
Moglix’s unique approach stemmed from their first principles mindset and deep understanding of their customers. Manufacturing procurement has always been run in a transactional manner with external stakeholders but is a key function adjacent to many other key internal functions and workflows — operations, supply chain, planning, finance, ERP etc. And therefore building a SAAS-based approach that integrated into all these functions while retaining the transactional freedom and speed of a marketplace led to a unique product market fit. The low friction SAAS deployment also led to significant stickiness from customers who were delighted with the increased visibility, insights and cost efficiency it brought.
Jungle has since been a leader in investing in more founders that are using the power of the SAAS based commerce enablement models to disrupt or tech enable more industries regionally and globally, including our investment in Kyklo that is helping bring the $640Bn electrical, industrial and automation industry online and our most recent investment in Saltmine that is focussed on bringing the $300Bn workplace design industry to the cloud.
Moglix is a game-changing business led by a visionary founder & is set to ride the crest of the digitalization wave in this region for years to come. The Jungle team will continue to be with Rahul every step of the way, offering our support & helping him #BuildtoLast as he now continues his journey from a CEO of a billion-dollar company to possibly the largest SAAS based marketplace company globally; just as we have been honoured to help this Mo(w)gli of the Jungle become the Unicorn in the Jungle!