Ruchi Kalra

Some Lesser Known Facts About Ruchi Kalra

• Ruchi Kalra is an Indian entrepreneur, who is the co-founder of OfBusiness and Oxyzo Financial Services startups that turned into unicorns, which means the companies reached a valuation of at least $1 billion.

• Ruchi started working as a senior business analyst at Evalueserve after completing her BTech in Chemical Engineering, following which she did her MBA from the Indian School of Business, Hyderabad.

• Ruchi was keenly involved in co-curricular activities during her college days. She was an elected member of the student body. In an interview, she disclosed,
  

  For me, in addition to the curriculum, there was a lot more to do as an elected member of the Student Body. This gave me an opportunity to explore my full potential and, also a recognition from the institute as a Young Leader.”

• In 2007, she joined McKinsey through college placement, where she worked for almost 9 years as a consultant in the financial service sector and later was made a partner in the company.

• During her time at McKinsey, she found her husband, Asish Mohapatra. In an interview, Ruchi said that her husband is her inspiration. She said that he plays a pivotal role as a professional coach and as a leader in her life.

  

• In 2016, she left McKinsey to join entrepreneurial forces with her husband and 6 others to establish their startup OfBusiness in the uncharted area of B2B.

  

• She became the co-founder and CFO at OfBusiness which serves as a single window for SMEs to get secured and unsecured credit.

• Her company OfBusiness became a unicorn after the Japanese multinational conglomerate, SoftBank Group Corp. had backed the company.

  

• She along with her husband and 3 other people in her team found an offshoot of their first startup in 2017. They named it Oxyzo, a blend of the words oxygen and ozone. ^[2]India.com

  

• Her company Oxyzo provides purchase financing to small and medium businesses, giving out cash-flow-based loans to help SMEs, which struggle to get working capital by using technology that crunches data.

• According to Oxyzo, Ruchi is the co-founder, CFO, and whole-time director of the company and keeps a check on finance control, accounts and audit, compliance – legal and secretarial, and capital management.

• In 2017, she was named as a contender to the BW Disrupt 40 Under 40 list. ^[3]BidAssist
  

• In July 2019, Ruchi represented OfBusiness as a speaker at the Unifi Alternative Finance round table conference, where four of India’s cutting-edge fintech companies presented their business cases, tech methodology, and risk management practices. ^[4]Unifi Capital

• Ruchi raised $200 million for her company, Oxyzo in its first fundraising round led by Alpha Wave Global, Tiger Global Management, Norwest Venture Partners, Matrix Partners, and Creation Investments, which was the largest series-A funding ever for an Indian startup. This also made it earn the unicorn tag in 2022. ^[5]The Economic Times

• Ruchi was described by Norwest as the ‘first female founder in India of a profitable, fintech unicorn.’ ^[6]India.com

• In an interview, Ruchi stated that while working at McKinsey, she realized that SMEs were underserved. She said,
  

  I wanted to do something related to manufacturing, which was core to India’s growth. That was also the time I was expecting, so I wanted to start something new at the same time.”

• Upon being asked about her success mantra in an interview, Ruchi said,
  

  Perseverance. Perseverance is not giving up. It is persistence and tenacity, the effort required to do something and keep doing it until the end, even if it’s hard. And I believe that sooner or later perseverance gets rewarded.”