Asish Mohapatra, an IITIAN with 40000 Crore Startup, Rejected 73 times before becoming Billionaire

Asish Mohapatra: Asish Mohapatra is the main force behind the B2B (Business to Business) startup named Ofbusiness. He is revolutionizing the domain of industrial goods and services procurement platforms in India through the use of technology. Asish Mohapatra began his entrepreneurship adventure with OfBusiness in 2015. Within a span of 8 years, his company grew to be worth $5 billion (Rs 44,000 crore). Last year in 2022, the IIT graduate stated his goal of being the first startup with a PAT (profit after tax) of $100 million. Despite his success, he lacks a well-deserved corner office.

Asish Mohapatra was born and brought up in Bhubaneswar, Odisha. He completed his engineering from the renowned IIT Kharagpur. Upon graduation, he obtained his MBA degree from the esteemed Indian School of Business (ISB). Mohapatra always had a keen interest in entrepreneurship. So after finishing his educational journey, armed with a world-class education, he started his entrepreneurial venture by founding Ofbusiness. He also co-founded another startup called Oxyzo.

But Asish Mohapatra’s journey has not been without its challenges. In the early days of Ofbusiness, he struggled to convince lenders to partner with the platform. Many business investors and lenders were skeptical of his vision. His funding was rejected 73 times in the early days. Mohapatra worked hard to build the startup with whopping 5 billion dollars (44,000 crores) valuation. Despite being the owner of such a big startup, he doesn’t own his corner office, assistant, or driver. He made these sacrifices in order to establish an office culture based on the ideas of liberty, equality, and fraternity.

Humble Nature of Asish Mohapatra

Asish Mohapatra is a champion of fundamental rights. In a podcast, he said he had thought he would champion the ideals of equality, fraternity, and liberty when he became a successful man. After becoming successful, true to his word, he promoted an office culture where every employee is treated equally. No one has a reserved seat or reserved parking space in his office. Even on business trips, every employee, irrespective of seniority, travels by economy class and shares the hotel rooms with colleagues.

Asish Mohapatra’s Business Highlights

Some important highlights of the business career of Asish Mohapatra are mentioned below:

• He worked four years for Matrix partners before beginning his entrepreneurial journey
• He founded Ofbusiess in 2015.
• Ofbusiness is located in Gurugram, Haryana.
• Ofbusiness is a B2B industrial goods and services procurement platform.
• The company sells industrial goods, chemicals, and agricultural produce.
• Its revenue increased 400 times in the financial year 2021-22 touching 7269 crores, a substantial increase from the previous year’s 1757 crores.
• Ofbusiness’s PAT (profit after tax) is Rs 125.63 crore in the financial year 2022.
• He is the co-founder of another unicorn named Oxyzo.

From Incredulous To Incredible: How OfBusiness Turned Into A Profitable Unicorn

Personal Details of Asish Mohapatra

• Asish Mohapatra is a native of Odisha
• He is married to Ruchi Kalra, the co-founder of Oxyzo
• His mother was a physics professor
• He did his engineering from IIT Kharagpur and MBA from ISB
• His success mantra is: chase the unthinkable and make everyone else do the same