ProcMart makes the small stuff matter

Imagine a factory waiting for a bearing. The production line is expensive. The bearing is small. Yet the relationship between them is brutally unequal: without the little thing, the big thing cannot work. The purchasing department may have found three quotations, negotiated a discount and followed every rule. None of that makes the missing part arrive. This is the sort of problem ProcMart has chosen to own.

Its territory is indirect procurement: the tools, safety equipment, electrical items and other supplies that allow a business to operate. These purchases rarely get the attention lavished on a company's finished product. ProcMart's wager is that their coordination deserves a business of its own. A lower unit price helps. So does having someone responsible for everything that happens after the quotation.

01 The quotation was only the beginning

Anish Popli founded ProcMart in 2015 after working in procurement and project management at BHEL and Energo Engineering. There was an earlier industrial education, too. In a personal account of the company's first factory acquisition, he recalled growing up in the staff quarters of Bhilai Steel Plant, where his father worked. Machines were part of the landscape long before they became a market.

The first idea was narrower. ProcMart offered technology for bidding between businesses. IndiaMART backed it in 2016, when public descriptions emphasized quotation-based sourcing. Looking back in 2024, Popli explained that the team saw a larger gap in e-procurement and moved into end-to-end solutions. The change was consequential: finding a seller became one part of a job that also included getting goods to the buyer.

That is the first lesson worth borrowing. Map the entire task the customer is trying to finish. A successful auction can still leave someone arranging transport, checking stock and chasing delivery. ProcMart's expansion followed those unfinished chores. The opportunity lay in the distance between a purchase decision and a usable purchase.

02 A catalog with a guest list

ProcMart calls itself a marketplace, but its working model has an unusual boundary. In May 2025, finance chief Sachin Jain described a closed catalog: an assortment customized for each enterprise and its locations, supplied through a predefined seller network. Selection is organized around a customer's requirements. You are buying into a managed process as well as buying an item.

For a manufacturer with several plants, that arrangement can reduce repeated supplier searches and scattered purchase orders. ProcMart offers ERP integration, vendor consolidation, inventory tracking and replenishment. Its MRO range runs from bearings and fasteners to protective equipment and industrial automation. Packaging adds cartons, films, pallets and related materials. Biofuel services cover biomass sourcing, briquettes and pellets, supply contracts and boiler operations.

The buyers are substantial businesses in FMCG, automotive, pharmaceuticals, metals and other industrial sectors. Publicly named customers include Colgate, PepsiCo, Britannia and Cargill. By April 2025, reporting put ProcMart in 25 Indian cities, alongside operations in Malaysia and Indonesia. Its current website describes a footprint of more than 30 Indian cities. Physical coverage matters when the customer's problem is a delivery.

Moglix and IndustryBuying are alternatives in industrial purchasing; an enterprise can also keep managing its existing distributors. ProcMart's case rests on the combination of tailored catalogs and operational responsibility. Consolidating vendors can simplify administration. It also makes the quality of the coordinating partner more important. The buyer still needs clear specifications, dependable suppliers and a way to handle exceptions.

03 Big sales. A very small cushion.

The business model is visible in its accounts. Entrackr's analysis of FY24 filings reported ₹621.5 crore in sales and procurement-service revenue, up from ₹206.07 crore in FY23. Product sales supplied 98% of that FY24 figure. ProcMart earns primarily by trading goods, with procurement assistance contributing the rest. Calling it a software company would obscure where the money actually comes from.

Growth carried costs. FY24 expenses reached ₹623.4 crore, including ₹582 crore for materials. Net profit fell to ₹73 lakh from ₹1.68 crore. These figures explain the discipline required: a large volume of purchases passes through the company, while relatively little remains. A busy marketplace can have a very quiet bottom line.

Investors supplied expansion capital: $10 million in a November 2022 Series A led by Sixth Sense Ventures, followed by a $30 million Series B in April 2024 led by Fundamentum and Edelweiss Discovery Fund, with Paramark participating. Funding bought room to develop technology, recruit and extend the network. By May 2025, Jain said ProcMart had exited low-margin business. More volume had ceased to be the only consideration.

04 Then the buyer bought a factory

In April 2025, ProcMart acquired its first owned packaging production facility in Aurangabad, now Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar. It already had contract-manufacturing partnerships in Faridabad, Baddi and Rudrapur. The acquired plant had reported capacity of 1,000 tonnes a month. Owning production added another way to influence the outcome promised to customers.

“Backward integration into packaging production enables direct control over quality and timelines.”

Anish Popli, on the 2025 acquisition

The distinction is practical. A supplier coordinator must persuade another business to change a schedule or fix a quality problem. A manufacturer can act inside its own operation. Ownership also brings machinery, people and production obligations. The acquisition's logic is clear; its eventual return depends on execution. Capacity alone does not prove that customers received better service.

05 Start with the missing bearing

For a purchasing team considering ProcMart, the useful starting point is one recurring category with too many vendors or too many urgent orders. Establish the existing lead time, stockouts, inventory and administrative effort. Then compare delivered cost and reliability through a managed arrangement. This is an application of the model, rather than a promise of a particular saving.

It fits best where purchases repeat across locations and coordination consumes real time. A rare specialist component or a business with excellent existing supply arrangements may offer less room for improvement. The transferable idea is modest: count the work around the purchase. The bearing's price appears on the invoice. The hours spent getting it to the machine often disappear from view.