Kolkata: City-based NowPurchase, a procurement technology company for the metal manufacturing industry, has announced plans to expand its team by hiring from the state of West Bengal including Kolkata to further strengthen the technology team to build out its procurement platform and expand the offering of its manufacturing intelligence software, MetalCloud.
The start-up has recently raised Rs. 17 crore in a seed funding round led by Orios and InfoEdge Ventures, in January 2022.
The company has already started hiring from top colleges in Kolkata and it is helping freshers from the state stay close to their families and their roots.
Among the colleges in Kolkata are Jadavpur University, IIM-Calcutta, NIT Durgapur, Haldia Institute of Technology, and St. Xavier’s College. Top Indian management schools included IIM Shillong, IIM Sambalpur, IIM Ranchi, IIM Kashipur, XIM Bhubaneswar, SRM Institute, NIT Jamshedpur, MDI Murshidabad, and T.A. PAI Management Institute.
Naman Shah, Founder & CEO, NowPurchase, said, “Every year, talents from Kolkata move to cities such as Bangalore, Hyderabad, Mumbai, Delhi, and others in search of better career possibilities. We would like to retain the talents from Kolkata in Kolkata since it is a city of academic and cultural hubs, a city of many firsts, the pride of the nation in many ways, leading from the front and creating a mark. Many start-ups have thrived in the city in recent years. Things are gradually improving, and we are now in a position to keep talented people in the city.”
Talking about the metal manufacturing industry, Naman further added, “Metal is the primary building block or backbone of the physical world and will remain so in the foreseeable future. As a result, it is critical that we are able to manufacture metal efficiently. The source & quality of raw materials has a significant impact on metal manufacturing efficiency.”
He further said, “NowPurchase is a one-stop procurement platform for these raw materials, and we believe that efficient raw material sourcing can have a significant positive impact on the metal manufacturing industry. We will be using the funds to expand our imports of raw materials from across the globe. In comparison to countries in Europe and the Middle East, this space in India is unorganized. We intend to leverage technology to harness the potential currently lost in this disaggregated market.”
Aakash Shah, Founding Director & Mentor, NowPurchase, said, “We are a fast growing cloud procurement company and it is an extremely exciting phase for us. Such a strong investor interest validates our model of going deep within a customer segment and building a strong repeatable and predictable business model.”
NowPurchase provides its users with a WhatsApp bot to discover prices and stock in real time, a dedicated technically trained team to provide on-ground service and quality assurance, and a proprietary software-MetalCloud to optimize their manufacturing process.
The company has grown ten-fold since launching its platform for foundries in September 2020. In terms of customers, it has nearly 100 foundries on the platform, with 70 of them transacting monthly. The NowPurchase team consists of 35 people, with aggressive plans to grow its business & product teams in the new year.