Success does not usually happen overnight. It is full of ups and downs. You will face people who do not believe in you and times when you doubt yourself.. Sometimes you just have to keep going. The story of Ruchi Kalra is an example of this. Ruchi Kalra is an entrepreneur from India. She was rejected by people who could have helped her but she did not give up. Ruchi Kalra turned all those rejections into something. She is now, in charge of two big companies that are each worth billions of dollars. The story of Ruchi Kalra is very inspiring. It shows that if you work hard and think about the future you can do things. Ruchi Kalras journey is a reminder that success is not always easy but it is worth it.
Ruchi Kalra is a special person who knows how to make good plans manage money well and start new businesses. She studied at IIT-Delhi. Got a degree in BTech and she also got an MBA from ISB. Ruchi Kalra worked at McKinsey & Company in Mumbai for ten years before she decided to start her own business in 2015. Now Ruchi Kalra is the co-founder of OfBusiness and the CEO of Oxyzo Financial Services. She has made one of the most liked fintech platforms, in India that makes a profit first. Oxyzo has been doing well under her leadership. The company has been making money since it started. It began with an amount of money, ₹3.7 crore in the year 2018. Now it makes ₹311 crore. Oxyzo is in charge of a lot of money over ₹3,000 crore. It helps more than 3,000 small and medium businesses in India. She is very careful about how the company grows and makes money. This is why she is on Forbes Asia’s Power Businesswomen 2025 list. This list is about women who are making a difference, in business in Asia. Oxyzo is still doing well because of her. Moreover, she and her family ranked among India’s top 10 richest women entrepreneurs in 2025, with a combined wealth of around ₹9,130 crore according to the M3M Hurun India Rich List.
Today, as the co-founder of OfBusiness and the CEO of Oxyzo, Ruchi Kalra is not only a unicorn founder but also a role model for aspiring entrepreneurs, particularly women who dream of building impactful and sustainable businesses.
Early Life and Educational Foundation
Ruchi Kalra was born in Delhi. She grew up there in a family that was not very rich. She was the child in her family. Her family wanted her to study hard and be a person. Ruchi Kalra was very smart. She worked really hard when she was a kid. These things, about Ruchi Kalra helped her a lot when she started working. Ruchi Kalra had a lot of ambition. She wanted to do big things in her life.
Ruchi started her education with a Bachelors degree in Chemical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi. This is a good school in India. Ruchi has said that she was not really interested in Chemical Engineering. She wanted to go to the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi because it’s a great school and it is close to her home. Ruchi liked the idea of studying at a school without having to move too far away. The Indian Institute of Technology Delhi is one of the schools, in India and Ruchi took this opportunity to study there.
The subject was not something she really loved. Going to IIT was very important for her. It helped her learn how to think solve problems and deal with tough situations. These skills, like thinking, problem-solving ability and resilience became very important for her career later on. IIT and the skills she learned there, like thinking, problem-solving ability and resilience really helped her.
Early Career: Building Corporate Excellence
After finishing her studies at IIT Delhi Ruchi started working at Evalueserve in Gurgaon. She worked there for a years and got to know about research and how companies work. This was an experience for Ruchi.. She wanted to learn more about how businesses make plans and decisions. Ruchi wanted to know more, about business strategy at Evalueserve and other places.
This aspiration led her to pursue an MBA from the Indian School of Business (ISB), Hyderabad—a decision that proved transformative. At ISB, Ruchi honed her leadership skills, developed a strong business mindset, and built connections that would later play a critical role in her entrepreneurial journey.
McKinsey Years: Refining Strategy and Leadership
Ruchi’s career took a major leap when she joined McKinsey & Company, one of the world’s most prestigious consulting firms. Over the next nine years, she worked extensively in the financial services sector, advising banks, financial institutions, and large enterprises.
Her time at McKinsey was marked by consistent growth and excellence. Through relentless dedication and sharp strategic thinking, Ruchi rose to become a partner—a significant achievement in itself.
At McKinsey, she learned how to:
- Build businesses with strong fundamentals
- Analyze markets with precision
- Make data-driven decisions
- Lead high-performance teams
More importantly, these years instilled in her a philosophy that would later define her startups: profitability, discipline, and long-term thinking are non-negotiable.
The Leap into Entrepreneurship
By 2015, despite flourishing corporate careers, Ruchi and her husband Asish Mohapatra felt a growing sense of restlessness. The couple, who met while working at McKinsey, shared a common desire to build something impactful from scratch.
Drawing from their professional networks, they identified a major pain point among India’s small and medium enterprises (SMEs):
- Inefficient procurement systems
- Multiple layers of middlemen
- Lack of affordable and timely credit
This realization led to the birth of OfBusiness in 2015.
OfBusiness: Disrupting B2B Procurement
OfBusiness was launched as a B2B digital marketplace aimed at simplifying the procurement of raw materials such as steel, chemicals, polymers, and food grains for SMEs. The platform leveraged technology to aggregate demand, negotiate better prices, and streamline supply chains.
However, the early days were far from easy.
In 2016, Ruchi and her team faced 73 investor rejections. Many doubted the viability of a B2B platform in a traditionally offline, fragmented sector. Yet, Ruchi remained calm and methodical—believing deeply in the problem they were solving.
Eventually, one investor believed in their vision. That belief changed everything.
Today, OfBusiness is valued at over $5 billion, operates from Gurgaon, and employs hundreds of people. The company turned profitable within just 15 months, proving the strength of its fundamentals.
Oxyzo: Bridging the Credit Gap
While building OfBusiness, Ruchi noticed another critical challenge faced by SMEs—access to fast and reliable credit.
Banks often took weeks to approve loans, causing businesses to lose orders. To address this gap, Ruchi launched Oxyzo, the financial services arm of OfBusiness, just six months after OfBusiness was founded.
As CEO of Oxyzo, Ruchi focused on:
- Working capital loans
- Supply chain financing
- Fast credit approvals
Oxyzo became profitable within 30 days, an extraordinary achievement in the fintech space. In 2022, it achieved unicorn status after raising $200 million at a $1 billion valuation.
A Partnership Built on Trust: Ruchi Kalra & Asish Mohapatra
Ruchi’s entrepreneurial success is closely intertwined with her partnership with her husband, Asish Mohapatra, who serves as CEO of OfBusiness.
Often described as “Yin and Yang”, their contrasting personalities became their greatest strength:
- Ruchi is calm, analytical, and strategic
- Asish is energetic, sales-driven, and deeply connected to ground-level realities
In the workplace, personal roles take a backseat. Mutual respect, trust, and clarity define their professional dynamic—allowing both leaders to operate independently while aligning on vision.
Leadership Philosophy: Profitability First
Ruchi Kalra is a leader who always puts making a profit. This is one thing that really stands out about the way Ruchi Kalra leads. She is completely dedicated, to making sure the company makes money with Ruchi Kalra at the helm.
From day one:
• Hiring was cautious
• The company kept an eye on the operational expenses to make sure they were under control. They checked the expenses every day to see where they could cut back on the operational expenses. This helped them to stay on top of the expenses and make good decisions, about the operational expenses.
• We made technology investments for a reason they were meant to achieve something the technology investments were done on purpose.
If something does not make money we stop doing it. This is an important idea, for both OfBusiness and Oxyzo. They really believe in this. It helps them make decisions. OfBusiness and Oxyzo will not keep doing something that is not working.
This way of doing things really helped the companies deal with times like when the economy slowed down and we had to face the problems caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. The companies were able to withstand these slowdowns because of this disciplined approach.
Net Worth and Business Impact
The Financial Express says that Ruchi Kalras net worth is around ₹2,600 crore. Ruchi Kalra has two companies, OfBusiness and Oxyzo. These two companies, OfBusiness and Oxyzo are really valuable. The value of OfBusiness and Oxyzo together is, over ₹52,000 crore.
Empowering thousands of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) by solving real-world problems in procurement and access to credit.
Ruchi makes business models that can grow and make a lot of money. She has always tried to create companies that make revenues and are also good for the long term. The way Ruchi does things shows that a business can be profitable and big at the time. Ruchi builds business models that’re good for business and that is what she is good at building business models that work well and make money business models, like that.
Setting new benchmarks for women’s leadership in traditionally male-dominated sectors such as fintech and B2B commerce.
In addition to building two unicorns, Ruchi Kalra and Asish Mohapatra are also active angel investors. Together, they have supported over 20 startups, contributing meaningfully to the growth and strength of India’s entrepreneurial ecosystem.
Balancing Leadership and Motherhood
Despite leading two high-growth companies, Ruchi Kalra is also a devoted mother to her daughter. She openly acknowledges that personal and professional lives often overlap—but believes that accepting help and building strong teams makes balance possible.
Her journey proves that women do not have to choose between ambition and family—they can excel at both.
An Inspiration for the Next Generation
From her days at IIT and ISB, to becoming the CEO of a unicorn fintech company Ruchi Kalras story is really something. It shows what Ruchi Kalra can do. The story of Ruchi Kalra is an example of what is possible.
• Resilience in the face of rejection
• Strategic thinking rooted in fundamentals
• The power of complementary partnerships
She continues to shape the future of India’s SME sector—one thoughtful decision at a time—while inspiring countless entrepreneurs to dream bigger, think smarter, and stay resilient.
Ruchi Kalra is not just building businesses; she is building a legacy.
Ruchi Kalra –Biography Table
| Category | Details |
| Full Name | Ruchi Kalra |
| Profession | Entrepreneur, Fintech Leader |
| Known For | Co-founding two unicorn companies – OfBusiness & Oxyzo |
| Birthplace | Delhi, India |
| Nationality | Indian |
| Family Background | Raised in a middle-class Punjabi family |
| Marital Status | Married |
| Husband | Asish Mohapatra (Entrepreneur, CEO of OfBusiness) |
| Children | One daughter |
| Education (UG) | B.Tech in Chemical Engineering, IIT Delhi |
| Education (PG) | MBA, Indian School of Business (ISB), Hyderabad |
| Early Career | Analyst at Evalueserve, Gurgaon |
| Corporate Career | Partner at McKinsey & Company |
| Years at McKinsey | Approx. 9 years |
| Industry Focus at McKinsey | Financial Services |
| Entrepreneurial Journey Began | 2015 |
| First Startup | OfBusiness |
| Role at OfBusiness | Co-founder |
| About OfBusiness | B2B digital marketplace for raw materials procurement for SMEs |
| OfBusiness Unicorn Status | Achieved in 2021 |
| OfBusiness Valuation | Approx. $5 billion |
| Second Startup | Oxyzo |
| Role at Oxyzo | Founder & CEO |
| About Oxyzo | Fintech company providing working capital and supply-chain financing to SMEs |
| Oxyzo Unicorn Status | Achieved in 2022 |
| Oxyzo Valuation | $1 billion |
| Investor Rejections Faced | 73 rejections before first major funding |
| Funding Raised (Oxyzo) | $200 million |
| Profitability Philosophy | Built both companies to be profitable from day one |
| Time to Profitability | OfBusiness – 15 months, Oxyzo – 30 days |
| Work Location | Gurgaon, Haryana |
| Leadership Style | Calm, analytical, long-term focused |
| Business Philosophy | Strong fundamentals, profitability, disciplined growth |
| Net Worth | Approx. ₹2,600 crore (as per Financial Express) |
| Combined Company Valuation | Over ₹52,000 crore |
| Angel Investments | Invested in 20+ startups |
| Awards & Recognition | Featured among India’s leading women entrepreneurs |
| Known As | One-half of India’s first husband-wife unicorn-founder duo |
| Inspirational Impact | Role model for women entrepreneurs and fintech leaders |