Udaan: India’s Biggest Digital Wholesaler

Udaan, Reliance Retail and India’s Kirana Wars

My name is Mikal — I’m an early-stage tech investor and I was born in Asia, grew up in Africa and now live in the US. Every week I break down a fast-growing business in an emerging market to understand its product, market and growth strategy.

This week I’m breaking down Indian B2B wholesaler Udaan. This piece was originally published here.

Within the next decade India will overtake China to become the most populous country in the world. Today India’s population is 1.38 billion and this is expected to reach 1.5 billion by 2030 and peak around 1.65 billion in the middle of this century. The enormous growth of India’s population — from just 370 million in 1950 — has created a massive and fast-growing retail market. Consumer spending in India is forecast to hit $3.6 trillion in 2021, more than 4x what it was a decade ago.

Today Indians buy most of their home goods — food, spices, clothes, shoes and more — from small mom-and-pop retail stores known as kiranas locally. There are over 12 million of these kiranas across India and they are the center of India’s…