NowPurchase Raises $8.6M in AI Funding Round

NowPurchase Secures $8.6 Million in Fresh Funding to Supercharge AI-Powered Metal Procurement in India

India's B2B industrial tech landscape has once again attracted serious investor attention, as NowPurchase — a Kolkata-based AI-enabled platform for metal manufacturers — has closed a significant funding round worth $8.6 million (approximately Rs 80 crore). The round was led by Bajaj Finserv, with co-participation from Info Edge Ventures and Orios Venture Partners. Additional investments came from a diverse group of individual investors and family offices, including Shikhar Raj, Real Ispat Group, Madhur Gupta of Lloyds Group, VC Grid, and Kartik Hosanagar. This latest AI funding news marks another defining milestone in the company's journey toward transforming India's deeply fragmented and largely unorganised metal procurement sector.

With this infusion of capital, NowPurchase's cumulative fundraising total now stands at approximately $18 million, reflecting the growing confidence the investor community has in the startup's technology-first approach and business model. The announcement also fits well within the broader pattern sweeping India's startup ecosystem, where AI funding is rapidly flowing into industrial, manufacturing, and supply chain tech companies that are applying intelligent platforms to solve longstanding structural inefficiencies.

From Kolkata to the Core of India's Metal Industry

NowPurchase was co-founded in 2017 by Naman Shah and Aakash Shah, who set out with a clear vision — to digitise and streamline the raw material procurement landscape for metal manufacturers, a sector that had for decades operated through informal networks, opaque pricing, and fragmented supply chains. The company originally launched as a broader B2B horizontal e-commerce platform, but made a deliberate and well-timed pivot in December 2019, narrowing its focus exclusively to the metal manufacturing industry. That strategic shift proved to be a turning point, as it allowed the startup to build deep domain expertise and develop product offerings that directly tackled the ground-level challenges faced by foundries, steel plants, and metal fabricators.

Today, NowPurchase functions as a full-stack procurement and production intelligence platform, enabling metal manufacturers to source critical raw materials — including metal scrap, alloys, and additives — through a seamless, technology-driven interface. The platform also maintains an extensive global supply network that connects Indian factories with international suppliers, ensuring both competitive pricing and consistent material quality. With a rapidly growing client base of over 250 factories — including notable names like Titagarh Rail Systems and Brakes India — NowPurchase has firmly cemented its reputation as a trusted procurement partner for India's metal manufacturing community.

Beyond its digital procurement capabilities, NowPurchase has expanded into operating physical scrap processing centres across key industrial regions of India. The company also offers a carefully curated branded product portfolio tailored specifically to the quality requirements of metal manufacturers. This combination of digital-first procurement, on-the-ground logistics infrastructure, and proprietary branded products sets NowPurchase apart as a genuinely differentiated player in a space that is becoming more competitive with every passing quarter. For a company rooted in the City of Joy, its ambitions are clearly national — and in many respects, global.

MetalCloud: The AI Engine Powering a Smarter Metal Industry

At the heart of NowPurchase's product innovation is MetalCloud — its proprietary AI platform that functions as the intelligence and operations layer for metal manufacturing businesses. MetalCloud is purpose-built to help manufacturers move away from traditional, labour-intensive, and often unreliable processes toward data-driven, digitised workflows that are more efficient, cost-effective, and resilient. The platform integrates IoT-enabled sensors, computer vision technology, and machine learning algorithms to continuously monitor, analyse, and optimise production processes — particularly in the melting and casting phases of metal manufacturing.

For foundries and metal plants — where even marginal improvements in yield and energy efficiency can translate into substantial cost savings at scale — MetalCloud represents a genuinely transformative operational tool. Manufacturers using the platform gain real-time visibility into production data, can closely track material consumption patterns, and receive AI-powered recommendations that help reduce waste and improve output quality. This is precisely the kind of applied industrial AI solution that aligns with India's broader goals of building a smart, future-ready manufacturing ecosystem under national programmes like Make in India and the emerging AI-first industrial policy initiatives.

In the context of global AI funding news, the emergence of platforms like MetalCloud underscores a shift in where venture capital is flowing — away from consumer apps and toward deep-tech, industrial-grade AI systems capable of creating measurable, large-scale impact. The AI funding that continues to pour into companies operating at the intersection of manufacturing and intelligent technology signals a growing investor belief that some of the most compelling AI applications lie not in consumer products but in the gritty, high-stakes world of industrial operations. NowPurchase's persistent investment in MetalCloud places it squarely within this exciting and rapidly evolving narrative.

The company has also actively extended its MetalCloud ecosystem through on-ground engagement, hosting AI workshops and industry events in cities like Rajkot, Kolkata, and Coimbatore — bringing together manufacturing leaders, plant operators, and technology experts to explore AI-driven solutions firsthand. These initiatives serve a dual purpose: they build community and brand trust while positioning NowPurchase as the definitive thought leader in AI-powered manufacturing intelligence for the Indian metals sector.

Bajaj Finserv's Strategic Bet and the Investor Consortium

The decision by Bajaj Finserv to lead this funding round is particularly significant and worth examining closely. As one of India's most diversified and well-respected financial services conglomerates, Bajaj Finserv's participation in a B2B industrial AI startup reflects a growing recognition of the powerful convergence happening at the intersection of financial services, supply chain management, and procurement technology. For manufacturing businesses, access to embedded financing, working capital support, and intelligent procurement tools creates a compounding advantage — and Bajaj Finserv's involvement opens NowPurchase to a potentially vast network of manufacturing enterprises that are already part of the Bajaj Finserv ecosystem.

Info Edge Ventures and Orios Venture Partners — both of whom had invested in NowPurchase's earlier rounds — continued their support with participation in this latest funding round. This continuity is a powerful signal of investor conviction. Info Edge Ventures, the venture arm of the company behind India's most trusted jobs portal Naukri.com, has been a consistent backer since the early stages of NowPurchase's journey. Orios Venture Partners, known for its sharp eye for scalable B2B business models, has similarly demonstrated long-term belief in NowPurchase's trajectory. This kind of institutional follow-on investment is often more telling than a first-time investment, as it reflects informed confidence built on firsthand knowledge of the company's execution capabilities.

The participation of strategic individual investors and family offices — including Shikhar Raj, Real Ispat Group, Madhur Gupta of Lloyds Group, and Kartik Hosanagar — adds yet another layer of value to this round. Many of these investors bring not just capital but also domain expertise and deep networks within the metals and manufacturing space, providing NowPurchase with access to industry insights, business relationships, and market intelligence that goes well beyond what a standard financial investment can offer. In the landscape of recent AI funding news from the Indian startup ecosystem, this kind of strategically assembled investor consortium represents a gold standard that other startups would do well to aspire to.

How the Fresh Capital Will Be Deployed

NowPurchase has outlined a focused and well-considered deployment strategy for the $8.6 million raised in this round, with capital earmarked across three primary pillars: expanding scrap recycling infrastructure, scaling its branded product portfolio, and further enhancing the capabilities of MetalCloud.

The push to expand scrap recycling infrastructure is arguably the most impactful element of this plan, both commercially and environmentally. The metal scrap market in India is enormous but deeply disorganised, with transactions frequently happening through informal channels with inconsistent quality assurance and opaque pricing. By investing in physical scrap processing centres and building a more structured, technology-enabled recycling supply chain, NowPurchase aims to bring reliability, transparency, and standardisation to a market that has historically operated in the shadows. This initiative carries significant sustainability implications as well — better scrap recycling reduces dependence on virgin raw material extraction and meaningfully lowers the environmental footprint of metal manufacturing, an industry under increasing pressure to decarbonise.

The scale-up of NowPurchase's branded product portfolio represents a smart move toward margin expansion and supply assurance. By offering proprietary alloys and additives under its own brand, the company can command higher margins, maintain tighter quality controls, and reduce its vulnerability to supplier-side disruptions. This evolution from a pure marketplace model toward a branded products business is a maturation strategy commonly seen among platform companies that have built sufficient trust and distribution to command product-level loyalty from their customers.

Finally, the continued investment into MetalCloud sends an unmistakable message about where NowPurchase sees its long-term competitive moat. As AI funding continues to surge into industrial tech companies globally, the winners will be those that can demonstrate tangible, measurable ROI from their AI platforms — and NowPurchase's track record with MetalCloud gives it a strong foundation to build upon. The goal is to transform MetalCloud from an intelligent procurement and production tool into a comprehensive manufacturing intelligence platform that becomes indispensable to the daily operations of metal factories across India and eventually beyond.

Competitive Landscape and the Road to an IPO

NowPurchase operates in a competitive but still structurally underpenetrated segment of India's industrial B2B ecosystem. Its most direct rivals include JSW One MSME, OfBusiness, and Metalbook — all of which are pursuing variations of the digital supply chain thesis in metals and industrial raw materials. JSW One MSME benefits enormously from the JSW Group's brand authority, financial strength, and deep integration across the steel value chain. OfBusiness has grown at a staggering pace to become one of India's most valued B2B commerce companies, operating across multiple commodity categories with a sophisticated embedded finance offering. Metalbook, while more focused, competes directly in the digital steel and metals procurement segment.

Against this competitive landscape, NowPurchase's differentiation is rooted in its decision to go deep rather than broad — building domain-specific AI tools, branded products, and physical infrastructure tailored specifically to the needs of foundries and cast metal producers. While OfBusiness has scaled impressively on the breadth of categories it serves, NowPurchase has chosen specialisation as its competitive strategy. In industries where deep expertise and operational reliability matter enormously, this approach builds switching costs and client stickiness that are genuinely difficult for generalist competitors to replicate.

Looking further ahead, NowPurchase CEO and co-founder Naman Shah has already signalled the company's ambition to pursue a public listing within the next three to five years. The path to an IPO will require NowPurchase to demonstrate consistent revenue growth, improving unit economics, and a clear trajectory toward profitability — objectives that the fresh capital will help accelerate. As India's public markets grow increasingly receptive to technology-driven B2B businesses, and as industrial AI emerges as a mainstream investment theme globally, NowPurchase's IPO ambitions appear both credible and well-timed.

The broader policy context also plays in NowPurchase's favour. India's Ministry of Steel has been actively reaching out to AI startups to collaborate on intelligent, deployable solutions for the steel and metals value chain, most recently at the India AI Impact Summit 2026. This alignment between government priorities and NowPurchase's operational focus creates a favourable tailwind that could accelerate adoption, open partnership opportunities, and strengthen the company's narrative as a national champion in AI-powered industrial technology. As AI funding news continues to highlight the transformative potential of applied AI across heavy industries, NowPurchase stands poised to write one of the most compelling chapters in India's industrial tech story.