MonotaRO Japan pours in $15M in JV with Industrybuying.com for growing SME Ecommerce Business in India

MonotaRO Co., Japan’s largest MRO B2B Ecommerce company announced that it has decided to invest $15M in a JV with Industrybuying.com (Emtex) to grow Industrybuying’s SME Ecommerce business in India. Emtex has transferred its SME business into JV, and continues to grow its Large enterprise businesses independently.

Industrybuying.com now has access to MonotaRO Japan’s knowhow, product portfolio, supplier network and ecommerce expertise to develop market leadership position in India. MonotaRO, majority owned by Grainger Inc, also gives Industrybuying access to global expertise and infrastructure in the MRO Ecommerce space. MonotaRO, which has majority control on JV, gets entry into the very large, emerging and attractive India B2B ecommerce market via a well established, profitable platform.

MonotaRO commented that, "Through this JV, the Company expects to efficiently develop its business in the Indian market, which is expected to grow significantly in the future, by utilizing the E-Commerce business model that Emtex has already established in India (industrybuying.com) and based upon the knowledge that the Company has obtained through developing businesses in Japan and in other countries around the world."

Industrybuying management commented that "MonotaRO's deep ecommerce expertise and catalog of over 10m products can propel India business to a highly profitable, IPOable growth trajectory in a very short time. So, we are excited to be partnering with them in this phase of our growth. Parallely, we continue to grow our large enterprise and other businesses independently and profitably."

MonotaRO Co. stock price was up 9% since Sep 23 2020.