Asish Mohapatra and OfBusiness: The Journey to Building Profitable Unicorns

Asish’s life story is true of perseverance, innovation, and determination. Asish has managed to defy the odds in building a successful company that flourished as a category leader and is now a symbol of resilience. Asish's journey with OfBusiness was one of building from scratch. Moreover, he faced many challenges, but his unwavering belief in his vision made him a pioneer in his field.

This StartupTalky feature will give you a look into Asish’s biography, his challenges, and how he founded OfBusiness. His passion compelled him to make difficult decisions that helped create his company's future.

Throughout this story, we will explore Asish’s entrepreneurial journey, battles, the pivotal decisions that made all the difference, and how he made his dreams come true. Though Asish’s path wasn’t easy, his ability to focus, adapt, and innovate took him to incredible success.

We invite you to learn the inspiring story of Asish, the entrepreneur who made his vision a thriving business, proving that persistence and determination can get you anywhere. In this StartupTalky article, we will explore Asish Mohapatra's success story, including his early life, history, net worth, childhood, personal life, education, investments, and more.

Asish Mohapatra - Biography

Asish Mohapatra - Education
Asish Mohapatra - Career
Asish Mohapatra - Personal Life
Asish Mohapatra - OfBusiness
Asish Mohapatra - Investments
Asish Mohapatra - Interesting Facts

Asish Mohapatra - Education

Asish Mohapatra’s educational background bears testimony to his determination and love for knowledge and is a strong foundation for his entrepreneurial success. Asish was born and raised in Odisha and pursued his early education with a keen interest in academic excellence, eventually leading him to some of the most prestigious institutions in India.

One of Odisha's most renowned institutions, Ravenshaw University, was where Asish started his higher secondary education. He did his 10+2 here, with a strong focus on science, but particularly excelled in Physics since his mother was a Physics professor. His time at Ravenshaw was spent honing his analytical skills, which would play a part in his future academic success.

One of the top engineering institutions in India, the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, accepted Asish. He did a B.Tech in Mechanical Engineering from IIT Kharagpur, which indicates his ability to solve problems and innovate. As a result of this rigorous program, he gained a technical foundation that he would later use to build OfBusiness, a technology-driven B2B industrial goods platform.

OfBusiness Success Story - How it Makes Procurement Easy! | Founders | Business Model | Funding | Revenue |

OfBusiness is a raw material collector and supplier of procurement financing. Learn more about OfBusiness’s founders, business model, funding, shareholding, growth, future plans, and more.

StartupTalkySarika Anand

Asish Mohapatra - Career

Asish moved to Hyderabad to gain valuable work experience and then went on to do an MBA in Finance and Marketing from the Indian School of Business (ISB). ISB was known to have globally recognized programs, and his business acumen, strategic thinking, and leadership skills were further polished. Asish spent time at ISB and learned much about financial management, marketing strategy, and entrepreneurial frameworks, which helped him become a founder and a CEO. After graduating, he joined McKinsey & Company as an Engagement Manager, one of the world’s foremost consulting firms.

After four years in consulting, four of those were spent at McKinsey refining his consulting skills, predominantly working in healthcare. He consulted with multinational corporations as well as Indian companies on pharmaceuticals, medical equipment, and pharmaceutical support services. This not only expanded his view of business operations but also provided him with the chance to work with leaders and strategists across the globe. During this time, he met his future wife and future business partner, Ruchi Kalra.

In 2010, Ashish moved to the venture capital side of the business as a Senior Associate at Matrix Partners. As a board member for multiple healthcare and portfolio companies, he gained invaluable experience here. While he was there, he also worked very closely with startups and entrepreneurs, helping them evaluate their business models, guide their strategy, and understand the intricacies of venture funding. Years spent at Matrix helped him understand the challenges a startup faces, and it shaped his entrepreneurial mindset.

Ashish Mohapatra left Matrix in 2015 with a bold vision: to build a one-stop platform for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in India. He co-founded OFB Tech Pvt Ltd, better known as OfBusiness, with his wife, Ruchi Kalra, in Gurugram. The company set out to disrupt the B2B commerce and fintech space by offering SMEs industrial goods and tech-enabled financing solutions.

At first, OfBusiness procured raw materials like metals and cement for manufacturing and infrastructure industries. Despite achieving early success, Ashish identified a critical gap in the business: the absence of credit facilities for customers. Realizing that over 95% of transactions were on credit, he changed the company’s model to include in-house financing.

Building a credit-focused startup without prior experience in the field is a herculean task. However, 73 venture capitalists rejected Ashish, and many thought his vision was unviable. He and Ruchi didn't let it phase them. They spent a year studying balance sheets, meeting SMEs, and understanding their pain points. When Zodius Capital led the first funding round for OfBusiness in 2016, this rigorous groundwork paid off.

The game changer was the introduction of tech-enabled, low-interest, collateral-free loans. The business slashed loan disbursement times from 90 days to 72 hours, making it much more appealing to SMEs. The company disbursed INR 100 crore in loans and had earned INR 500 crore in revenue by 2018.

By 2021, OfBusiness had become a full platform for industrial goods, specialty chemicals, agricultural products, and digital services like BidAssist and ProcureAssist. The company's lending vertical had INR 1,500 crore loan books, and the company had served over 7 lakh SMEs.

OfBusiness raised INR 1,300 crore in funding from Tiger Global in August 2021, which raised its valuation to INR 10,000 crore and made it a unicorn. It became one of India’s fastest-growing startups, reporting INR 603 crore profit in FY24 and over INR 19,000 crore revenue.

Apart from OfBusiness, Ashish and Ruchi co-founded Oxyzo Financial Services in 2016. In addition to becoming the first Indian couple to each lead a unicorn company, the fintech firm focusing on SME financing also became a unicorn itself. This also strengthened Oxyzo’s reputation as a visionary entrepreneur who could make money.

Asish Mohapatra - Personal Life

Asish Mohapatra was born in Cuttack, Orissa, in 1980 and was brought up in a family with strong academic values and a zeal for excellence. His mother, Mishra Kuku, was no slouch either, being an IIT graduate and a college Physics teacher. This environment's intellectual curiosity and discipline had a great deal to do with Asish’s early years. Growing up with his sister, Snigdha Mohapatra, he lived with a close-knit family that valued education, integrity, and resilience.

Asish did his ICSE (10th) from SCB Medical Public School, Cuttack. His higher secondary education (10+2) was done at Ravenshaw College. Asish became known for his determination and focus and later got into the prestigious Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Kharagpur, where he completed a B.Tech in Mechanical Engineering. Headed to the Indian School of Business (ISB) Hyderabad for an MBA, he further complemented his strong academic foundation and technical acumen with his entrepreneurial success.

While working at McKinsey & Company, Asish met his future wife, Ruchi Kalra. Like Asish, Ruchi is a highly accomplished person, and their shared ambition and complementary skills drew them closer. Eventually, they married and became a formidable team, personally and professionally. Asish and Ruchi made history as the first Indian couple to successfully raise their startups to unicorn status independently—Asish with OfBusiness and Ruchi with Oxyzo.

The couple is blessed with a daughter, Khushi Mohapatra, who brings joy. Asish loves to spend time with his family and is a doting father. Balance, support, and dedication have been crucial to his professional and personal success.

Asish's hobbies and interests also make his personal life more prosperous. He loves creative writing, keeping collections, and indulging in sporting activities. Fluent in Bengali, Hindi, English, and Oriya, he has a deep interest in language and communication, which is often expressed in his writing of blogs. He is disciplined and committed to managing both his personal and professional responsibilities.

Mohapatra's family epitomizes synergy between personal support and professional achievement. Asish often credits his family as his pillar of strength, and they helped him navigate the challenges of entrepreneurship. Asish’s personal life reflects his belief in resilience, hard work, and the importance of a supportive family environment, having a strong bond with a shared vision for the future.

Asish Mohapatra - OfBusiness

Ashish Mohapatra’s journey involves perseverance, adaptability, and innovation. His leadership has set the B2B commerce stage on fire in India, and his focus on profitability and sustainability has inspired thousands of entrepreneurs. Despite all the success, Ashish is grounded and builds an equal, fraternal, and shared-purpose culture in the workplace. His story is a success story of how setbacks can be the stepping stones to success.

At a time when lofty valuations tend to overshadow fundamentals of sustainable growth and profitability in Indian startups, Asish Mohapatra has found his space. Mohapatra, co-founder and CEO of OfBusiness and co-founder of Oxyzo Financial Services, is a rare breed of entrepreneur who values profitability and long-term value creation over vanity metrics. The power couple has built two profitable unicorns in a market that is largely loss-making, alongside his wife and business partner Ruchi Kalra.

OfBusiness (OFB Tech) was founded in August 2015 to simplify procurement and financing for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in India. It is a tech-driven B2B platform that integrates raw material procurement, credit, and financial services seamlessly. Mohapatra’s journey with OfBusiness has been defined by his intimate grounding in the SME ecosystem and his relentlessness in building a profitable enterprise.

Mohapatra had a stellar academic and professional background before he ventured into entrepreneurship. He was an IIT Kharagpur mechanical engineer and then earned an MBA from the Indian School of Business (ISB). He spent over four years at Matrix Partners, where he gained valuable knowledge of venture capital and the startup ecosystem.

Bold was the leap from the cushy world of VC to the gritty realities of running a startup. With support from SoftBank, Mohapatra navigated OfBusiness through the nuances of scaling a B2B platform.

2016, Mohapatra and Kalra founded Oxyzo Financial Services to work alongside OfBusiness. Oxyzo, a specialized fintech venture, offers working capital financing specifically for SMEs to enable them to have the liquidity required to grow and survive. Oxyzo’s CEO, Kalra, was instrumental in scaling the company. Her engineering background (IIT Delhi) and management (ISB), plus nine years at McKinsey, gave her a solid base to fuel Oxyzo's rapid growth.

They went on to make Oxyzo one of the rare fintech startups in India that became profitable in their infancy. Its success owes much to its innovative approach to credit underwriting based on OfBusiness's deep operational insights.

Mohapatra's philosophy revolves around a simple but powerful mantra: sustainable growth. At OfBusiness’ Gurugram office, Mohapatra shared his belief in building ventures that focus on profitability and differentiation while being motivational. An entrepreneur’s journey, he said, is through stages of happiness and delight and, eventually, the ‘aha’ moment when your business becomes perpetually growing, you make the profits. It’s no longer easy for competitors to replicate your model.

This is unlike many startups that burn cash to double their growth; OfBusiness and Oxyzo are more focused on delivering tangible value to their customers. They have earned their admiration and are outliers in India's unicorn landscape.

Oxyzo and OfBusiness have transformed India's B2B and fintech sectors. Oxyzo provides hassle-free credit for SMEs, while OfBusiness simplifies procurement for SMEs through tech-driven solutions. They are bridging critical gaps in the SME ecosystem, helping businesses scale efficiently.

Mohapatra imagines a world where startups are applauded not just for their valuations but also for their ability to generate lasting value. His journey is a testament to disciplined execution, customer-centric innovation, and a commitment to profitability, all lessons that can be applied in any industry.

Asish Mohapatra’s leadership as CEO of OfBusiness and Oxyzo Financial Services is a case study in the art of marrying vision and execution. In the age of cash-hungry startups, Mohapatra and Kalra have changed the meaning of a unicorn. Their story gives the next generation of entrepreneurs a new focus on fundamentals: profitability and growth need not be mutually exclusive but essential ingredients to long-term success.

OfBusiness Launches Nexizo: AI-Powered Discovery Platform for SMEs

OfBusiness launches Nexizo, an AI-powered discovery platform aimed at streamlining operations and boosting growth for SMEs. Explore how Nexizo empowers businesses.

StartupTalkyNitin Konde

Asish Mohapatra - Investments

Apart from being a successful entrepreneur, Asish Mohapatra has been an active investor in the startup ecosystem. His investments reflect his belief in helping foster innovation and supporting the growth of promising startups across all industries. Here’s a list of some notable investments made by Asish Mohapatra:

Asish Mohapatra’s investments result from his thorough understanding of sectors that he has been involved in in his entrepreneurial journey, including SMEs, fintech, and technology-driven solutions. His background in scaling businesses and ability to find ventures with high growth potential makes his choices.

Asish Mohapatra - Interesting Facts

• Dual Unicorn Founder: Ruchi Kalra and Asish Mohapatra, with her as co-founder and him as co-founder, have co-founded two unicorn startups—OfBusiness and Oxyzo.
• Early Career Leader: He graduated from IIT Kharagpur and joined ITC Ltd. at a young age. He then managed a team of over 1,000 people.
• Rejection Didn’t Stop Him: When pitching for funding, Asish’s OfBusiness funding pitches were rejected 73 times in 2016 before he struck gold. His perseverance set him on the road to his eventual billion-dollar empire.
• First Couple of Unicorns: Asish and Ruchi Kalra, India’s first couple to individually lead startups to unicorn status, are celebrated.
• Healthcare Expertise: Asish worked extensively at McKinsey & Company, working extensively on healthcare and with multinational corporations and Indian companies in the pharmaceuticals and medical equipment space.
• Educational Brilliance: Asish is among the most qualified people you can meet, with a B.Tech in Mechanical Engineering from IIT Kharagpur and an MBA from the Indian School of Business, Hyderabad.
• Creative Multitasker: In addition to entrepreneurship, Asish has a knack for creative writing and speaks Bengali, Hindi, English, and Oriya.
• Success Mantra: His guiding philosophy is "When the going gets tough, the tough get going!" This quote describes the journey from failure to success.
• SoftBank Support: In 2021, his startup, OfBusiness, became a unicorn after raising $160 million, led by SoftBank, bringing its valuation to roughly $1.5 billion.
• Global Vision: Asish’s startups are not just financial success but are pioneering in providing secured and unsecured credit to SMEs for growth across sectors.
• Licensed Director: In 2020, the Indian Institute of Corporate Affairs certified Asish as an independent director, which signifies his ability to lead in various roles.
• Family Inspiration: Asish’s academic and professional journey started with an IIT graduate and college physics teacher's mother, who inspired him with discipline and excellence.
• Sports Enthusiast: He likes sporting records and admires Chinese badminton player Lin Dan.
• Team Spirit: In 2015, Asish's journey with OfBusiness started with a close-knit team, many of whom stayed with him through thick and thin. In 2016, he launched Oxyzo as a spin-off.
• Unicorn in Record Time: OfBusiness became a unicorn in 2021, and Oxyzo right behind it in 2022, becoming a unicorn itself.

FAQs

Who is Asish Mohapatra?

Ashish Mohapatra is the co-founder and CEO of OfBusiness, a B2B commerce platform that provides raw material procurement, financing solutions, and technology tools for SMEs. He is also the co-founder of Oxyzo Financial Services.

Who is Asish Mohaptra wife?

Ashish Mohapatra's wife is Ruchi Kalra. She is the co-founder and CEO of Oxyzo Financial Services, a fintech company that provides working capital financing to SMEs. Ruchi is also a co-founder of OfBusiness, along with Ashish. The couple is well-known for their entrepreneurial success and building unicorn companies together.

What is Asish Mohapatra education?

Ashish Mohapatra completed his undergraduate degree in Mechanical Engineering from IIT Kharagpur and then pursued an MBA from the Indian School of Business (ISB), Hyderabad. His strong educational foundation helped him develop the skills necessary to co-found successful ventures like OfBusiness.