Lal10 Sets Up 7 Satellite Offices to Digitise Textile factories (MSMEs) PAN India

In the first phase, centres have opened in Jaipur, Hyderabad and Varanasi

With a vision to digitise the MSMEs in India for global trade, Lal10, a cross-border B2B tech-enabled full-stack platform, has announced that it will launch seven satellite offices across seven states by the end of June 2023. With 2292 MSMEs in its fold, Lal10 has become the largest pan-India aggregator of textile factories.

The MSME sector of India is one of the biggest contributors to the nation's GDP and the export markets, with a 30 percent and 50 per cent share respectively. Digitising these factories, Lal10 claims to be the largest cloud-export house from India to the world. This expansion is in line with the start-up's strategy to leverage technology and transparent supply chains to unleash the latent potential of these MSMEs for global trade.

It is opening offices in Varanasi, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Ahmedabad, Indore, Jaipur, and Noida, all of which are close to the country's major centres for textile production. These centres are at the mouth of manufacturing, where the company will digitise these textile factories. The supporting regional offices will be empowered with a Production Manager who will head operations, a Quality Control Manager who will be responsible for uniform product quality as per global standards and the Catalogue Manager who will look after up-skilling the manufacturers and teaching them how to 'come online' and reap the benefits of economies of scale in raw material and finance sourcing, efficient inventory management while being updated on global design trends.

This expansion is in keeping with the scale planned by Lal10 to service its midsize to large-scale global buyers in the US, UK, Japan and the Middle East. With its current base of MSMEs already on-boarded with an unutilised capacity of $600M, Lal10 is already among the top export houses in the country. It aims to add another 12,500 Indian MSME partners with an output of $1 billion in the next 3-4 years. 

Commenting on this expansion, Maneet Gohil, CEO and Co-Founder, Lal10 said, "With such huge global demand for textiles, Indian MSMEs have enormous potential to grab a larger share of the export market. There is an immediate need to enable more textile hubs from India to plug this demand and provide a large assortment of products. The traditional Indian textile hubs are only contributing to domestic markets. We are leveraging technology to map these factories on production, streamline processes for quality and design and make the systemic changes which were due for Indian manufacturing to go global. Tech built to support our regional operational expertise at the satellite offices is helping us build for scale. We will be the largest export house from India in a span of the next 18 months.”

Currently, there is a huge discrepancy between the few big exporter belts of the country and the rest of the MSMEs which have tremendous production capacity but lose out due to systemic inefficiencies which are easily addressed through transparent technology solutions. Lal10 consolidates the raw material demand of our MSMEs helping them to get the best quality inputs at the lowest costs, eliminating the long line of middlemen. It also connects them to banks and NBFCs providing them affordable credit which is at least 10-15 per cent cheaper than what they currently get from the exploitative informal financing sector. To keep pace with global trends we also upskill our MSMEs with 300-400 designs per month.

Lal10's revenues increased by 1200% in the previous year with the current MoM growth clocking at 70-80 per cent. The company strives to provide the broadest selection of goods to its customers from all parts of the nation through an exhaustively mapped out, transparent supply chain and now services 200+ mid-size to large buyers and 12+ marquee brands in the United States, United Kingdom, Japan and the Middle East. Satellite offices in Jaipur, Hyderabad, Noida and Varanasi are already live with 3 more centres set to go live shortly.

MSME-powered Startup, Lal10, Records INR 200cr Revenue Run Rate - Grows 12x in 3 Quarters

On its way to digitising Indian textile based MSMEs for global B2B wholesale, Lal10, announced rapid growth, achieving a revenue run rate of over INR 200 Crores. The company’s DNA of understanding manufacturing from the bottom-up for a few years has helped them tap unheard of margins in cross border trade.

Maneet Gohil - Lal10 CEO

It grew over 12x in the past 9 months alone and is progressing towards rapid growth in the next few quarters. This run rate comes on the heels of its expanding number of mid-to-large format buyers in countries like the US, UK, Japan and the Middle East. Lal10 has also launched 7 satellite offices in cities/ towns which are at the ground zero of manufacturing to cater to the rising demand. They are eyeing a $100M run-rate within the next 12 months. They claim to have over 80% buyer retention owing to better serviceability led by technology tools and stellar leadership team providing a transparent supply chain to global buyers.

Along with the increase in revenue, the company has digitised and given a globally relevant makeover to over 2200 Indian MSMEs with an aim to onboard another 12,500 MSMEs over the next 3 years. The onboarding will help Lal10 further consolidate its supplier base and digitally activate their supply chains to be able to play in the global markets at scale. The end-to-end design- to delivery technology ecosystem has translated into increasingly captive manufacturing units which allows Lal10 to customise and innovate at a fast pace for global brands. Today, Lal10 is the largest vertical wholesale marketplace for creative goods based MSMEs from semi-urban and rural towns in India. They are current day market leaders in taking sustainable and artisan led textiles from India to the world.

Speaking on the announcement, Maneet Gohil, Co-Founder and CEO of Lal10, said, “We never realised the goldmine we were sitting on until we started utilising the recently raised capital in setting up cross-border operations for sales and marketing. We are over achieving the monthly targets. Today we work with some of the largest marquee brands in the US, UK and Japan. The hero for us has become our differentiated textile products that are craft based and sustainable. The buyers have never had access to these fabrics at this scale before and according to their contemporary design tastes which has created a strong hook for them. The teams are moving swiftly to grab more buyers in these countries. Our next goal is to become the prominent and largest supplier for some of the marquee brands and retain them with exemplary service levels aided through technology.”

This Indian creative MSME-centric startup has used technology as a pillar to remove systemic inequalities present in archaic indian supply chains which has allowed them to upgrade these manufacturing units as per global design trends, making Lal10 a key player in taking up space in global marketplaces on the heels of the slowdown of Chinese exports.

Recently, Lal10 had raised $5.5 million in its pre-Series A round with participation from Xander Group, Spiral Ventures, Singularity Ventures and Beyond Capital Ventures along with notable angels like Nitish Mittersain, Amit Ranjan, Mekin Maheshwari, Notion India Head to name a few. They are using capital to grow inorganically in markets such as the US, UK and the Middle East aggressively. It has also expanded its operations and teams in Japan and created a Japan-dedicated platform for the buyers, japan.lal10.com, to source ethically made artisanal textiles from verified Indian creative manufacturing MSMEs.

Online Cross-Border Wholesale Platform Lal10 Raises $5.5 Mn in its Pre-Series A led by Yuj Ventures (Xander Group) and Beyond Capital Ventures

The round also included participation from Spiral Ventures, Singularity Ventures, Blacksoil, Panthera Peak, Asymmetry Ventures and Pegasus FinInvest

The startup has over 2200 verified MSMEs and digitized 45,000 products from Tier II, III and IV belts in India

With a goal to digitise the Indian creative MSMEs industry, Lal10, is an wholesale cross-border platform, has raised $5.5M in a Pre-Series A funding round led by Yuj Ventures (Xander Group) and Beyond Capital Ventures. The fresh capital will be used to expand aggressively in the global markets across the US, Japan and Middle East. It will expand its tech-based supply chain solutions to buyers and technology innovations for MSMEs, empowering them with design to digitisation to the global wholesale discovery. Additionally, looking at the potential of the MSME industry, Lal10 aims to reach a $100 million run rate in the next 12 months focusing on the home textile category.

The round also saw participation from Spiral Ventures, Singularity Ventures, Asymmetry Ventures, Blacksoil, Panthera Peak, and Pegasus FinInvest. Prominent angels such as Nitish Mittersain of Nazara Technologies, Bikky Khosla from TradeIndia, Ashok Gudibandla from Notion and Kishore Ganji of Astir Ventures, Suprajit FO, Bob Noyen, Reasoned Ventures, UK based Insaan Group, and Partners at Mckinsey participated in the round.

Today, Lal10 is India's largest cross-border wholesale platform for Indian creative MSMEs in craft-based supply. It has built a niche supply base of over 2200 verified MSMEs and 45,000 digitized products from Tier II, III and IV belts in India. The startup is a tech-enabled full-stack platform for craft-based MSMEs with over 2200 craft MSMEs using the application to digitize their inventories for global wholesale, get skilled with contemporary design trends, and source raw materials directly from factories.

Maneet Gohil, CEO & Co-founder of Lal10, said, “Lal10 is building technologies for the next craft revolution. As a brand, we intend to digitize the entire craft industry in India and prepare them for global wholesale. India's $3.5B export GDP in creative produce comes from a handful of production hubs like Panipat, Moradabad, Saharanpur, Jaipur, and Tirupur. While India has a production appetite of over $160B with tier III & IV production hubs like Bhagalpur, Pochampally, Maheshwar, and Amroha, which are yet to come on the global map. We are making Bhagalpur the next Panipat by enabling contemporary designs, technology innovations for a transparent supply chain, and digitizing inventories of sustainable products for discovery to global buyers wholesale. We also want to thank all investors for placing their trust in us, our mission, and for joining hands to make Lal10 help 1.2mn Indian craft-based MSMEs go global.”

Sid Yog, Founderof Xander Group said, "By building a cross-border platform for empowering Indian craft based MSMEs across the smaller towns and cities of India, Lal10 is creating a systemic change with their efficient tech-enabled supply chain. Yuj is pleased to support their vision of creating value for unsung artisans while unleashing a billion-dollar opportunity in global markets."

Sujit Kunte, Head of India, Spiral Ventures, said, “Lal10 has built a formidable supply base of creative MSMEs in tier II, III and IV cities, resulting in unique designs and high-quality products. They have also honed delivery in smaller lots with shorter times,” said Sujit Kunte, Head of India, Spiral Ventures. “We are looking forward to supporting them in their Japan market entry.”

The B2B rural-sourcing market is large, highly disorganised, and geographically disaggregated. Still, with the advent of inexpensive, ubiquitous internet and smartphones across even the rural corners of India, this sector is ripe for disruption. There is an untapped opportunity to leverage technology and software applications to leapfrog the challenges and build a robust global supply chain connecting SMEs with retailers in India and overseas.

Founded in 2017 by Maneet Gohil, Sanchit Govil, and Albin Jose, Noida-based Lal10 is an online cross-border wholesale platform for grassroot MSMEs in India. Since its inception, it has been creating a maker’s revolution by digitizing small and medium rural manufacturers to take their sustainable products to global markets. Additionally, in March 2020, Lal10 raised a seed round from Sorenson Impact from Utah and a few angel investors. The round helped MSMEs connect with large retail brands across India, US, Ireland and Middle-East. The name Lal10, pronounced as Lalten (meaning lantern), is derived from the company’s mission to “bring light in the lives of the artisans”.

With CoVID layers of mediators traditionally involved in the trade have vanished. This has created an immediate need to digitize these rural SMEs across the country and connect them to retailers for the growing demand for sustainable goods globally. The B2B rural-sourcing market is large, highly disorganized, and geographically disaggregated. Still, with the advent of inexpensive, ubiquitous internet & smartphones across even the rural corners of India, this sector is ripe for disruption. There is an untapped opportunity to leverage technology & software applications to leapfrog the challenges and build a robust global supply chain connecting SMEs with retailers in India and overseas.