Mumbai-based Business Advisory Platform MSMEx Raised USD 1 Million

Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprise (MSME) EdTech company MSMEx has raised $1 million in a Pre-Series A funding round co-led by Razorpay and the international investment firm TNF Investments. The company had earlier raised angel funding from a clutch of leading angel investors including Badri Pillapakkam (Partner at Omidyar Network), Krishna Kumar (Founder of SimpliLearn), Manoj Sharma (CTO of Cleartrip), and Heetesh Veera (Partner at E&Y), among others.

MSMEx said that it will use this funding to develop new intuitive technologies, including a deep learning-based recommender system, a live chat system, an AI-based behaviour analytics system, and scale its operations to serve more users. MSMEx was founded by Amit Kumar in 2019 and was joined at an early stage by Vishal Kumar, Dilip Kumar, Khushboo Arora and Kumar Sambhav.

In a statement, Amit Kumar said “Only 0.5% of micro-businesses are able to scale up and graduate to the next level in India, while the comparative figures for China and the USA are at 25% and 45% respectively. Not every micro-business owner gets access to world-class business education or mentors and advisors, as 90% of them are located outside metro cities. MSMEx is taking structured business education and advisory services to every corner of India, to create future leaders of the Indian economy. Our investors understand the MSME space well, and we are therefore excited to achieve this aligned vision together of impacting 10 million MSMEs in the next five years”

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MSMEx offers LIVE business sessions for MSME owners and also connects them with curated business experts for online interactions and hand-holding support. Business owners and entrepreneurs can also ask queries to experts through a LIVE chat community and can talk to experts through 1-on-1 video calls for mentoring and leadership advice.

The last 15 months have changed the way business is done in India. While large corporations and technology companies have managed to adapt to the new reality of remote work, having already undergone digital transformation, India’s 63 million micro businesses with their limited resources have found business transformation and online interaction challenging. MSMEx bridges the gap by enabling access to digital transformation and business best practises for these smaller, geographically dispersed businesses in a cost effective and efficient manner.

Currently, the MSMEx platform has over half a million users representing micro and small businesses from over 1,200 cities across India.  The startup said it has registered 55 percent MAU growth since January. MSMEx currently offers English language content with a strong focus on the quality of experts. The platform will shortly be launching content in Hindi and other regional languages to cater to a much larger non-English-speaking user base.

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