Small businesses typically struggle to find buyers or gain traction in overseas markets. It is to solve this pain point of small enterprises that Connect2India, a start-up based in Delhi, was launched.

The four-year-old Connect2India helps small and medium enterprises (SMEs) find overseas markets for products.

Its online marketplace enables SMEs to directly arrange export and import orders from worldwide buyers and suppliers.

“It all started majorly because of three reasons: first, my passion to combine trade and technology; second, to bring positive change on a large scale that could impact millions in a positive way. And third, my belief that innovation using technology is the key in any field,” said founder Pawan Gupta.Initially, Connect2India was launched as a trade statistics intelligence platform for SMEs to find target markets for export and import.

The company later realised that the demand from MSME sector for an end-to-end solutions model for export and import was huge, as these enterprises, especially in tier II and tier III cities, seek last-mile handholding for global trade.

The startup helps businesses find and qualifying global trade counterparts and arranging export and import orders from them. It offers a platform-driven approach for MSMEs for overall trade execution, enabling them to focus on their core businesses.

Gupta said last week, a farm owner from Sangli in Maharashtra directly received an order of 10 containers a month from Connect2India’s marketplace. Another farm owner received Red Chillies order and the orders of multiple others for grapes, oranges and pomegranates are in progress, all these without any middleman involved, he said.

Through its platform, SMEs from multiple industry sectors such as agro, apparel, textile, handicraft, polymers, FMCG, metals, etc can directly sell their products in the overseas markets. The company has also forayed into large enterprises segment this year, helping them expand their global markets.

According to the startup, one such company was a Tata Group company, which came on board last year to market Tata Swach water purifiers globally.

The company had started generating revenue from last quarter of 2016. Currently, it is operationally profitable and cash-flow positive.With a strong user base of 1,40,000+ and 30 million+ Google Organic impressions a month, Connect2India has grown substentially in the last one year, the startup said.

Given its tech-driven and scalable model, the company launched the beta of Connect2World couple of months back. The beta version was launched for a select set of users and the company is planning to launch full version in 2020. The new version would increase the reach of the platform multi-fold and would allow worldwide MSMEs to trade anytime, from anywhere, and with anyone around the globe, the startup said.

First Published:Jan 1, 2020 4:39 PM IST