bengaluru businesstobusiness online marketplace udaan is on course to become the fastest indian startup to reach unicorn status soaring to the 1 billion valuation milestone in merely 26 months of registrationthe company founded by three former senior executives of flipkart is in advanced talks to raise 225 million from existing investors dst global and lightspeed venture partners global fund according to two people familiar with the development udaan was planning to raise its next round of financing after december but started seeing interest from investors existing backers have decided to double down again on the company one of them said adding that the bengalurubased startup is being valued at just over 1 billion in its latest fundraise advt udaan in february secured about 50 million from lightspeed and apoletto asia the personal investment vehicle of dst globals russian billionaire founder yuri milner after raising 10 million two years earlier also from lightspeed its latest fundraise is expected to boost its february valuation by five timesonline fooddelivery platform swiggy messaging app hike and advertising platform inmobi all took about four years to be valued at more than 1 billion paytm mall became a unicorn in about 14 months but it had the benefit of being spun out from its parent company with a brand and business already establishedudaan cofounder sujeet kumar and dst global did not immediately reply to emails on the matter lightspeed indias managing director bejul somaia confirmed the investment but declined to comment on the specificsudaans business model of providing a b2b ecommerce platform for manufacturers to sell directly to shop owners and merchants is seeing increasing competition from the likes of amazon business metro cash carry walmart and alibaba reliance industries too is expected to enter the segmentthe market for b2b ecommerce is estimated by industry to reach 700 billion by 2020 much higher than the 50100 billion estimate for consumerfacing online retail in the same period advt udaan was registered as hiveloop technology pvt ltd in june 2016 it launched a pilot product in november 2016 before a full rollout in june 2017udaan has seen gross value of transactions on the platform jump by over 12 times in the last one year and is doing rs 300400 crore of sales a month said one of the people mentioned earlier the company has 130000150000 buyers and sellers on the platform and operates in the apparel electronics staples and fastmoving consumer goods categories it plans to add the home and kitchen office supplies industrial goods and fresh fruits and vegetables categories as welludaan also has plans to build its own supply chain which will involve setting up large warehouses so it can offer better rates with improved reliability of shipments it is also building a lending play by which it will underwrite working capital loans to buyers on the platformudaan currently picks up products from manufacturers and sellers in 80100 cities and delivers across 800 cities and towns across the countrythe company was cofounded by vaibhav gupta