Sahil Barua is a visionary entrepreneur and business leader who has left a lasting mark on India’s logistics industry. He is the co-founder and CEO of the leading Indian logistics and supply chain company, Delhivery.
Sahil is also a keen angel investor and actively invests in startups. He has made investments in startups like Crest, The Souled Store, Nestasia, Sutradhar, BeepKart, and more.
Barua led the acquisition of its competitor, Ecom Express Limited, for INR 1,407 crore, according to reports as of April 2025. Delhivery has revolutionized logistics operations within the Indian e-commerce industry, transforming the way goods are delivered across the country.
In this article, let’s explore the success story of Sahil Barua, including his education, professional life, investments, and more.
Sahil Barua Biography
Name
Sahil Barua
Born
25 December 1984
Nationality
Indian
Education
National Institute of Technology, Karnataka; Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore
Entrepreneurs Talk With Delhivery CEO and Co-founder, Sahil Barua
Sahil Barua – Early Life and Education
Delhivery CEO Sahil Barua grew up in the city of Ahmedabad. Sahil has grown in an academic environment. His father was a professor at IIM Ahmedabad, and his mother was a doctor.
Sahil completed his formal education at St. Xavier’s High School. He pursued a Bachelor of Engineering in Mechanical Engineering (2002–2006) from the National Institute of Technology, Karnataka.
He then went for a post-graduation (2006–2008) at the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore. He was also an all-around gold medalist on the Director’s Merit List at the institute.
Sahil Barua – Professional Life
Sahil started his professional journey with short-term internships. It was when he was still pursuing mechanical engineering. He went to the University of Maryland, US, in 2005 and worked as a research intern on electronics packaging at the CALCE Labs for about four months.
The internship helped him gain valuable knowledge and innumerable experiences of corporate life.
Sahil Barua worked as a summer associate at Bain & Company for around three months while pursuing his post-graduation. Later, after the completion of his post-graduation, he started working full-time for the company as a consultant. After one year, he got promoted to Senior Associate Consultant. He then focused on examining sectors like private equity, telecommunications, and healthcare.
After another year, he was again promoted as a consultantwith a defined portfolio, gearing up for more responsibilities.
Sahil Barua – Delhivery
Sahil Barua | Delhivery
Sahil co-founded his logistics firm, Delhivery with two of his Bain & Company associates, Suraj Saharan, and Mohit Tandon in 2011. They had similar mindsets and were encouraged enough to establish their logistics startup in India.
The three co-founders were in conversation with their friends at Zomato. Since Zomato’s business was an online business that needed the network to deliver the eatables to its users, they started working on the proposed idea and began the initial phase of Delhivery.
They established their first corporate office in Gurgaon with a total of 10 people, including four delivery people. After that, they started connecting with local restaurants and fulfilling their orders within half an hour. The model worked very well, and the business picked up instantly. No sooner did they start getting offers from various e-commerce sites as well, and the company flourished thereafter.
Delhivery is a popular courier service, logistics, and supply chain solutions company. The company offers its services in parcel transportation, warehouse, and truckload deliveries through different portals like Delivery Express, Delhivery Fulfillment, Delhivery Freight, and Delhivery Cross-Border.
In May 2022, Delhivery launched its Initial Public Offering (IPO), which was a major achievement. The company’s ability to expand its business and access new financial markets was made possible by the IPO.
According to financial reports, Delhivery’s operating revenue has grown steadily, increasing 5% to Rs 7,225 crore in FY23 from Rs 6,882 crore in FY22.
Over the years, Delhivery company has changed how supply chain and logistics solutions are perceived and executed in India. Sahil Barua’s strategic vision and leadership are sure to help Delhivery solidify its position as a key player in the industry.
In a significant development, Sahil Barua, the CEO of Delhivery, has been appointed as an independent director on Swiggy’s board. Along with Sahil, Swiggy has appointed two other independent directors: Mallika Srinivasan, a Padma Shri awardee and Chairman and Managing Director of TAFE, and Shailesh Haribhakti, Chairman of Shailesh Haribhakti & Associates.
With a deep sense of understanding of logistics and supply chain operations, Sahil Barua will help bring valuable insights and expertise to Swiggy’s board. This strategic appointment is sure to enhance Swiggy’s delivery network and operational efficiency as it continues to revolutionize the food delivery ecosystem in India.
Sahil Barua – Investments
Sahil has made eighteen investments. The details for the most recent investments are given below:
Sahil Barua has made investments in companies like Crest, The Souled Store, Vidyut, BeepKart, and more.
What is Sahil Barua education?
Sahil Barua holds a Bachelor of Engineering in Mechanical Engineering from the National Institute of Technology, Karnataka, and is a post-graduate from the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore.
Who are in Sahil Barua family?
Sahil Barua was born and raised in India. His father, Samir Kumar Barua, served as a professor at IIM Ahmedabad, and his mother is a doctor.
Who is Sahil Barua wife?
Sahil Barua is unmarried as of April 2025.
Is Sahil Barua Assamese?
Barua is a common surname among the Assamese communities, who primarily follow Hinduism.
Who is Delhivery owner?
Sahil Barua is the Managing Director, CEO,, and the co-founder of Delhivery.
Collection and Distribution are the two main aspects of trade and commerce. Especially these days when eCommerce is booming, logistics has gained renewed importance. As per a report, the eCommerce retail logistics market was valued at USD 224.51 billion in 2021 and is expected to grow by $388.63 billion by 2030. To tap this growing demand, four ex-Blue Dart employees started up Ecom Express in 2012. Today Ecom Express offers nationwide express delivery services to the eCommerce industry.
The Indian logistics sector is undergoing significant consolidation, with Delhivery Limited announcing its acquisition of a 99.4% controlling stake in Ecom Express Limited for up to INR 1,407 crore ($169.5 million) in an all-cash deal. This acquisition, approved during a Delhivery board meeting on Thursday, April 5, represents one of the largest transactions in the logistics industry. Let’s explore more about the journey and accomplishments of this startup that has established itself as one of the best delivery services in the country, now acquired by Delhivery.
Here’s more about the Ecom Express Company, Ecomexpress Tracking, Owners, Ecom Express Pvt. Ltd. Founders, history, Startup Story, Logo and Tagline, Vision and Mission, Growth, Competitors, Business Model, Revenue Model, Funding and Investors, and more.
Ecom Express – Company Highlights
Company Name
Ecom Express
Headquarter
Gurugram
Founders
T.A.Krishnan, K.Satyanarayana, Manju Dhawan & Late Sanjeev Saxena
Ecom Express is a leading logistics service provider in the country, which was started in the year 2012. The company offers a variety of facilities, such as express services, digital services, and fulfillment services.
The Express services include ‘Ecom Express Service’ and ‘Ecom Ground Service’. Ecom Express Service renders pick-up (from sellers or warehouses) and delivery of products (to end customers) that are ordered online. While Ecom Ground Service is specifically designed for transporting huge and bulky products, they use inbuilt automated systems for tracking end-to-end orders. Under the Express service, Ecom Express also ensures QC (quality check) -enabled reverse logistics facilities, whereby trained Ecom Express executives perform quality checks of the products being returned by the end customers and deliver them safely to the sellers or to the warehouse from where the product was dispatched.
Ecom Digital Services offers e-KYC-Aadhar-based biometric verification and industry-specific cash, cheque, and document collection and Contact Point Verification (CPV) services
Under Ecom fulfillment services, Ecom Express offers warehousing and order management services. As for warehousing, the clients can choose the location of the warehouse and the space required per their requirements.
The company was recently acquired by Delhivery in April 2025 for INR 1407 crores in an all-cash deal.
With Delhivery Limited announcing its acquisition of a 99.4% controlling stake in Ecom Express Limited for up to ₹1,407 crore ($169.5 million) in an all-cash deal, Ecom Express is now fully acquired by Delhivery. This acquisition, approved during a Delhivery board meeting on Thursday, April 5, represents one of the largest transactions in the logistics industry.
For Ecom Express, this appears to be a distressed sale, as the company had last raised private equity at a valuation of approximately INR 7,300 crore. The acquisition price suggests a sharp decline in valuation, down by about 78% since its most recent funding round. Ecom Express has faced multiple challenges, including scrapping its plans to go public this year and dealing with controversial layoffs earlier.
Ecom Express – Industry
The India eCommerce logistics market is projected to experience significant growth over the next several years. In 2024, the market size is estimated to be USD 3.98 billion. By 2029, it is expected to nearly double, reaching USD 7.24 billion. This expansion represents a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 12.72% during the forecast period from 2024 to 2029. The growth is driven by the increasing demand for efficient delivery services as e-commerce continues to expand across India.
Ecom Express – Startup Story
Ecom Express was set up by four ex-Blue Dart employees, who collectively had an experience of more than 25 years in the logistics sector. It was way back in 2012 when the markets weren’t as good as they are now, and the eCommerce business was just gearing up for next-level growth. Furthermore, the logistics service wasn’t also as good as it appears today. As per the startup story of Ecom Express, 4 Blue Dart Express business professionals – Sanjeev Saxena, Manju Dhawan, K. Satyanarayana, and T.A. Krishnan sat for dinner, and when they left the table, they were full of the idea of their new logistics startup, which would eventually be named Ecom Express. The experience that the Blue Dart Express employees bore helped them gear forth with the idea that the B2C segment of the market would need their help, which is why they proceeded with a B2B business. The Ecom Express company was incorporated in August 2012, and its business operations started from January 2013 onwards.
Ecom Express – USP
Ecom Express stands ahead of other logistics services with its distinctive qualities. It serves in more than 2400 towns and cities in India, with a secured and reliable shipment of products with GPS-enabled vehicles. With its fleet network operating in 150 long-haul runs and 480 short-haul runs, it covers almost 80% of the total orders via its own network. Ecom Express’ order fulfillment services use cutting-edge technology to ensure controlled movements of orders and ensure point-to-point validation, thus making it a transparent process. Besides, through features like efficient route optimization, real-time electronic proof of delivery, cash-on-delivery collection, and real-time order tracking facilities, Ecom Express provides a seamless experience to both the end customers and the consignees.
When Ecom Express was started in 2012, the eCommerce sector was not as popular as it is today. However, with the years of experience they have, the Ecom Express founders could gauge the growth that the logistics sector will see with the eCommerce revolution, and it is this vision that inspired them to start up.
Ecom Express was founded by T.A Krishnan, K. Satyanarayana, Manju Dhawan, and Late Sanjeev Saxena.
T.A Krishnan
Mr. T.A Krishnan has an MBA and has worked as the VP North and Senior Vice President North and All India Head of Ecommerce Vehicle at Blue Dart Express, after which he left the company to found Ecom Express, where he was known as the Co-founder and CEO. He previously served the role of the Chief Operating Officer with Ecom Express. Krishnan had over 28 years of experience when he founded Ecom Express, making his professional experience over 37 years.
K. Satyanarayana
Mr. K Satyanarayana is an acknowledged leader in the Indian Express and logistics industry, with more than 26 years of experience in delivery services. Satyanarayana worked as a Regional Controller of the North Division with Blue Dart Express and had been with the company for 26 long years, after which he quit his job and co-founded Ecom Express. Satyanarayana is currently serving as a Co-founder and Director at Ecom Express.
Manju Dhawan
With her innovative perceptions of the market trends and client-centric strategies along with 25 years of practice, Manju Dhawan leads the company with functional excellence. Manju had over 24 years of experience with Blue Dart, where she had served as the Head of Customer Care after which she decided to co-found Ecom Express where she currently is the Co-founder and the Head of Customer Care.
Late Sanjeev Saxena
Sanjeev Saxena was another Co-founder of Ecom Express and was known for his entrepreneurial insight and visionary approach. Saxena died in 2020 and has been remembered for the strategic and operational direction that he brought into the company, which resulted in the overall growth of Ecomm Express.
The company has a team of directors and executive management with more than 19000 employees.
Ecom Express – Mission and Vision
The company aims to make ecommerce shipping easy. “Providing end-to-end technology-enabled logistics solutions to small and large eCommerce players” is the mission and vision of the company.
Ecom Express – Name, Tagline and Logo
“We Offer Possibilities In Every Direction,” – goes the tagline of Ecom Express. “We Make E-commerce Shipping Easy,” says the company on its website, where we can see another tagline, “Simple Solutions. High Impact.”
Ecom Express Logo
The name ‘Ecom Express’ portrays the collection and distribution services offered by the company in the e-commerce industry.
Ecom Express – Product And Service
WMS & OMS
Ecom Magnum, a service for sellers, was introduced by Ecom Express as the Warehouse Management Solutions (WMS) and Order Management Solutions (OMS) on February, 9, 2023.
Same Day Delivery, Same Day Delivery+, and Next Day Delivery
To meet the increasing needs of Indian eCommerce firms, Ecom Express Limited, a leading provider of end-to-end technology-enabled logistics solutions, announced the debut of three new services: Same Day Delivery (SDD), Same Day Delivery+ (SDD+), and Next Day Delivery (NDD) on April 21, 2023. By providing quicker and more dependable deliveries, Ecom Express hopes to enhance the customer experience and grow its clientele with the introduction of these services.
Ecom Express – Business Model and Revenue Model
Ecom Express operates in a B2B business model and offers its services to eCommerce companies. With its digital services, Ecom Express also provides services to companies from the Banking, Insurance, and Financial sectors. Ecom Express’s clientele includes market leaders such as Amazon, Flipkart, Clovia, Myntra, Paytm, Nykaa, and more.
Ecom Express gains a major portion of its revenues from the deliveries it makes and its related commissions.
Ecom Expres – Growth
Ecom Express started its operations in 35 cities with 42 delivery centers and around 300 employees. The company eventually saw its expansion to Kashmir because of the traction it achieved by July 2013, and gradually it again saw quite a customer demand in Mumbai, Delhi, and Surat and rapidly extended its operations primarily to these cities and then to the others. Now, it has 50000+ employees, 3,000+ delivery branches in 2,700+ different cities with 8,00,000 shipments/day.
Starting in 2012, Ecom Express has certainly achieved numerous milestones in growth. Some of the major growth highlights of the brand are:
Ecom Express extends its logistics services to over 2,700+ towns
The company is presently servicing 27,000+ pin codes
Ecom Express boasts of employing over 50,000+ people
The Krishnan-led company has over 3,000 facility centers
Ecom Express – Financials
Ecom Express Financials
Ecom Express has seen steady revenue growth over the last five years. However, the company continues to face profitability challenges, with losses in both FY24 and FY23 despite cost-control efforts.
Particulars
FY24
FY23
FY22
FY21
FY20
Revenue
INR 2,652.9 crore
INR 2,575.5 crore
INR 2,162.1 crore
INR 1,667.1 crore
INR 1,253.9 crore
Expenses
INR 2,921.6 crore
INR 2,902.8 crore
INR 2,269.4 crore
INR 1,613.6 crore
INR 1,631.4 crore
Profit/(Loss)
(INR 248.5 crore)
(INR 359.9 crore)
(INR 91.4 crore)
INR 43.4 crore
(INR 313.5 crore)
In FY24, Ecom Express increased its revenue by INR 77.4 crore, while losses reduced from INR 359.9 crore to INR 248.5 crore, showing signs of improved financial control.
Ecom Express Financials
Ecom Express Revenue:
Revenue Type
FY24
FY23
Revenue from Operations
INR 2,607.3 crore
INR 2,548.2 crore
Other Income
INR 45.6 crore
INR 27.4 crore
Total Revenue
INR 2,652.9 crore
INR 2,575.5 crore
Revenue grew by INR 77.4 crore in FY24, mainly driven by a jump in other income, which rose INR 18.2 crore, and a modest rise in core operations.
Ecom Express Profit/Loss:
Metric
FY24
FY23
Gross Profit (approx)
(INR 268.7 crore)
(INR 327.3 crore)
Operating Profit
—
—
Net Profit/(Loss)
(INR 248.5 crore)
(INR 359.9 crore)
Net loss reduced by INR 111.4 crore in FY24 compared to FY23, signaling improvement, though profitability remains elusive.
Ecom Express Expenses:
Expense Type
FY24
FY23
Cost of Materials Consumed
INR 1,389.9 crore
INR 1,386.7 crore
Employee Benefit Expense
INR 603.3 crore
INR 664.0 crore
Finance Costs
INR 86.0 crore
INR 87.6 crore
Amortization & Depreciation
INR 221.6 crore
INR 211.6 crore
Other Expenses
INR 620.8 crore
INR 552.8 crore
Total Expenses
INR 2,921.6 crore
INR 2,902.8 crore
Expenses increased slightly by INR 18.8 crore in FY24. “Other expenses” rose by INR 68 crore, while employee costs decreased by INR 60.7 crore, partially offsetting the increase.
Quick Summary (FY24 vs FY23):
Revenue Growth: Up by INR 77.4 crore (3%), led by higher other income.
Expense Management: Marginal rise in expenses a notable cut in employee costs by INR 60.7 crore.
Profitability: The Net loss narrowed by INR 111.4 crore, but profitability remains a challenge.
Business Implication: The company is making progress toward cost efficiency but needs sustained revenue momentum and loss reduction for profitability.
Ecom Express – Funding and Investors
Ecom Express has mopped up a total of $524.4 million in funding over the 6 funding rounds it has witnessed, which includes its latest funding of $14.7 million that came from the Warburg Pincus and British International Investment in July 2023. The Warburg Pincus-backed firm was last valued at $760 mn in August 2022.
Here’s a look at the Ecom Express funding rounds to date:
Date
Stage
Amount
Investors
July 5, 2023
Series C
$14.7 million
Warburg Pincus, British International Investment
October 6, 2022
Venture Round
$39 million
Partners Group
March 9, 2021
Venture Round
$20 million
CDC Group
December 16, 2020
Private Equity Round
$250 miilion
Partners Group
December 10, 2019
Venture Round
$36 million
CDC Group
September 11, 2017
Private Equity Round
$25.38 million
Warburg Pincus
June 4, 2015
Private Equity Round
$113.56 million
Warburg Pincus
September 9, 2014
Venture Round
$13.36 million
Peepul Capital
Ecom Express – Shareholding
Ecom Express’ shareholding pattern as of January 2025, sourced from Tracxn:
Shareholders
Percentage
Kotla Sridevi
2.8%
Manju Dhawan
1.6%
Jayanti Krishnan
1.1%
Saheba Saxena
0.4%
T A Krishnan
< 0.1%
K Satyanarayana
< 0.1%
Warburg Pincus
35.1%
British International Investment
8.3%
CDC Group
2.5%
Valli Alagappan Trust
–
GEPL Capital
–
Peepul Capital
–
Parent Entity
36.7%
Boxman
–
Inland Financial services
–
Angel
0.4%
Other People
3.2%
ESOP Pool
4.0%
Other Investors
3.7%
Total
100.0%
Ecom Express Shareholding
Ecom Express – IPO
Ecom Express has filed for an IPO to raise up to INR 2,600 crore on August 15 2024 ($310 million). The IPO will include a fresh issue of shares worth INR 1,285 crore, with existing investors selling shares worth INR 1,316 crore. Ecom Express plans to use the funds from the fresh issue to build new processing and fulfilment centers, invest in IT equipment, and repay debt.
TA Krishnan, Kotla Satyanarayanan, and Manju Dhawan, the founders of the company have invested INR 3.63 crore each to increase their stakes in the company, as per a separate filing of the company.
Ecom Express – ESOPs
Ecom Express has adopted a new employee stock option scheme, ECOM ESOP SCHEME 2022. This ESOP scheme of the company consolidates the old ESOP plan from 2017 into the new pool, as per the separate regulatory filings of the company.
This new ESOP plan contains 126,000 stock options, each convertible to one equity share. The Ecom Express ESOP plan is estimated to be worth somewhere around Rs 115 crore.
Ecom Express – Investments
Ecom Express has invested on two occasions in the Bangladesh-based logistics firm Paperfly. While the former investment was in January 2021, the latter one was announced on April 19, 2022, when it invested Rs 34.3 crore in the company, marking the second investment.
Name of the Company
Investment Date
Investment Amount
Lead Investor
Funding Round
Paperfly
April 19, 2022
$4.48 mn
Yes
–
Paperfly
January 13, 2021
$11.8 mn
Yes
Corporate Round
Ecom Express – Challenges
One of the main challenges that Ecom Express has faced since it was founded is raising funds. The problem was later solved with Mohit from Oliphans, who pumped in the money, which was then followed by the founders, who also contributed to the overall funding of the company from their personal funds. Ecom Express finally managed to raise funds from its Series A funding round when Peepul Capital led a funding round worth Rs 100 crore. The other challenges of Ecom Express include managing a healthy network of delivery partners and clients, monitoring its overall performance, and lifting it up!
Ecom Express – Awards
2017
Excellent Position Under E-commerce Logistics – CII Scale Awards
Best E-commerce Logistics Partner – ISCM LSP Awards
Most Disruptive Startup Logistics Idea, Supply Chain Disruptor of the Year – The 11th Express Logistics and Supply Chain Leadership Awards
BW Disruptors Awards
SCM and Logistics – Entrepreneur India Awards
Best Cloud Implementation – BW CIO Imperatives
Women Supply Chain Icon of the Year – The Global Logistics Excellence Awards
The Enterprise IT World Awards
Transport and Logistics Icon – 3rd Edition of the CIO Power List
Appreciation for Expert Panel Evaluation – BML Munjal Awards
Innovative CIOS Awards
2018
Exemplary Women Leadership Award – The 12thExpress Logistics and Supply Chain Leadership Awards.
Ecommerce Logistics – CII Scale Awards
Fastest Setting up of Delivery centers in India by a logistics company – LIMCA Book of Records.
SCM and Logistics – Entrepreneur India Awards
Last Mile Partner of the year, Supply Chain CIO of the year- The Global Logistics Excellence Awards
2019
Strategic Finance Transformation Icon – CFO Power List
CIO 500 Award
Fastest Growing Logistics Company of the year – Indian Oil Logistics Excellence Awards
Ecom Express company plans to hire around 15,000 employees in the next two years. With its presence not limited to just big cities and towns but to many tier II, III, and IV cities and also hinterlands, Ecom Express aims to be the best benefactor and solutions provider for logistics services in the eCommerce industry. With collective values of Integrity, Commitment, Openness, Respect, and Passion, the Ecom Express’ mission is to be paramount in the industry.
India’s eCommerce logistics market is growing quickly, fueled by the increasing demand for fast and efficient delivery services. Major investments in infrastructure and technology are reshaping the operations of logistics companies. Ecom Express’s IPO is more than just a fundraising effort; it’s a strategic move to better position the company to meet the rising demands of the market. If successful, this could set a benchmark in the logistics industry, attracting more capital and driving further technological advancements.
Ecom Express has already converted into a public entity in January when the board has approved a fundraise of about $648 million (INR 4,860 crore) via a public issue of shares.
The leading logistics solutions provider that provides end-to-end with a focus on speed, safe, and reliable nationwide express delivery services to the eCommerce industry. Ecom Express has been operational since its inception and the company has not made IPO claims till now. The company is fully functional without any obstacles and is leading the delivery market with flying colors. The company is planning to upscale its business by opening new branches in new towns and cities.
FAQs
How long does ECOM Express take to deliver?
Ecom Express offers timely cash-on-delivery (COD) remittances and guaranteed last-mile delivery of the orders in India within 24 to 72 hours, all around the year, including Sundays/Holidays.
How do I track my ECOM parcel?
You can simply open Ecom Express official site and paste your Ecom Express airway bill number or the Ecom Express tracking order number and click on “TRACK MY ORDER”. Then, you can enter the Ecom Express tracking number and click “track” on top of this page to track your order and Ecom Express delivery, shipping, and shipway.
What is Ecom Express owner name?
Ecom Express was founded by Late Sanjeev Saxena, Manju Dhawan, K. Satyanarayana, T.A Krishnan.
Is Ecom Express owned by Flipkart?
No, Ecom Express is not owned by Flipkart. Ecom Express is an independent logistics company in India that specializes in e-commerce logistics. While it serves various eCommerce platforms, including Flipkart, it is not owned by any of them.
What is Ecom Express and how does Ecom Express work?
Ecom Express uses its cutting-edge technology and automation solutions to enable first-mile pickup, processing, network optimization, and last-mile delivery. Ecom Express has its presence in all 29 states of the country and operates in over 2,700 cities and towns across 27,000+ PIN codes in India.
How do I return an item to Ecom Express?
You can follow these easy steps if you want to return an item to Ecom Express:
Go to the ‘Orders’ tab in the left menu.
Now, click on ‘All Orders’
For all shipments that have been marked as ‘Delivered’, you will automatically find a ‘Create Return’ option.
Click on ‘Create Return’
A new page with prefilled details about your order will open.
How do I complain to Ecom Express?
Ecom Express customer support has been notified about the posted complaint. Request you to kindly provide the 9 or 10-digit AWB / tracking number for us to assist you on the same.
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eCommerce is growing like never before. People are preferring to buy online instead of going to the market. On the other hand, brands are providing better offers and exclusive launches online to attract more buyers. It helps the brand to save on many kinds of expenses. However, many small businesses are still not able to afford to ship their products to different places. This makes them lose the opportunity to grow on a global level. This is what Shiprocket visions to solve in India.
If you want to know more about Shiprocket’s Success Story, its founders, history, business model, revenue model, funding and investors, revenue, growth, competitors, and more, then stay glued.
Shiprocket Company Highlights
Company Name
Shiprocket
Headquarters
New Delhi, India
Sector
Ecommerce, Logistics, Supply Chain Management
Founder
Gautam Kapoor, Saahil Goel, Vishesh Khurana and Akshay Ghulati
Shiprocket is a tech-enabled logistic platform that provides affordable plans to MSMEs so that they can come online and sell anywhere they want. Along with logistic services, Shiprocket provides many benefits like warehousing, packaging, and other related services. Moreover, their platform includes many other integrations that help the merchants and sellers to manage the deliveries. The brand delivers to 220 countries and over 27,000 pin codes across India at the lowest rates. Shiprocket uses the software made by its own teams to ensure the smooth flow of the organization’s day-to-day functions.
Serving over 85,000 active Direct Consumer sellers, Shiprocket helps Small and Medium Businesses fulfil end-to-end operations seamlessly with its AI-powered post-order services such as smart packaging, eCommerce fulfilment, and warehousing solutions, hyperlocal deliveries, shipping aggregation, free website development, and much more. Shiprocket aims to help its sellers grow their businesses by providing the widest pin-code serviceability with the help of 17+ reliable courier partners to ensure efficient and timely last-mile deliveries. Today, the company powers 4-5% of all eCommerce in India. With the help of easy Shiprocket API integration, it is easy and convenient, via which the developers can take advantage of the shipping functionalities for their business.
Shiprocket seller login is absolutely free, where the users need to just create their Shiprocket account and log to the same with their Google/Facebook account, their phone number, and other details that are to be filled up.
Shiprocket rates
Shiprocket has 4 different plans operating with varying rates. Here are the plans along with Shiprocket rates:
LITE – Shiprocket LITE is a free shipping plan of Shiprocket that has 0 months as the minimum signup period.
BASIC – The Basic plan of Shiprocket costs Rs 1000 per month. It has 3 months as the minimum signup period.
ADVANCED – The Advanced plan of Shiprocket costs Rs 2000 per month. It has 3 months as the minimum signup period.
PRO – The Pro plan of Shiprocket costs Rs 3000 per month. It has 3 months as the minimum signup period.
Market Details
The current global market value of the logistics industry is over $50,000,000,000 (50 billion), as per recent reports.
Shiprocket – Vision & Mission
Shiprocket’s vision is to be recognized as a leading D2C enabler, helping small and medium merchants grow their business in the eCommerce space. The future plan is to become India’s leading post-order experience platform, encompassing a gamut of tech-enabled services related to logistics and order fulfillment.
To accomplish this objective, we have already launched several AI-powered offerings such as smart packaging (Shiprocket Packaging), eCommerce fulfilment and warehousing solution (Shiprocket Fulfillment), hyperlocal delivery (Shiprocket Saral), full-stack website development (Shiprocket Social) and more. -Saahil Goel, Co-Founder of Shiprocket
Shiprocket’s core belief is aligned with serving small and medium-sized sellers in the country. They have set their vision on helping the Indian SMBs by taking their business online and competing with larger players like Amazon. Since its inception, Shiprocket has always focused on building and innovating for its sellers. Their long-term vision is to become India’s leading post-order experience platform, encompassing a myriad of fulfilment services such as high-quality packaging, eCommerce fulfilment and warehousing, hyperlocal delivery, website development, check-out enhancement, and more.
Saahil Goel, Akshay Ghulati, Gautam Kapoor, Gautam Kapoor and Vishesh Khurana are the co-founders of Shiprocket.
Shiprocket Co-Founders & Team
Saahil Goel, CEO & Co-Founder, Shiprocket
Saahil is an MBA and MS from the University of Pittsburgh (USA). He started his career as a Business Analyst at Max Life Insurance. After this, he started working as a Technology and Process Consultant for SDLC Partners (with Highmark Blue Cross Blue Shield). He was also a part of the founder’s teams of Kasper Consulting.
Role in Shiprocket – Saahil Goel is fondly referred to as the De facto CPO, given his passion for products, growth hacking and technology. His chief responsibilities include questioning everything that impacts the business, breaking existing barriers, and practicing and developing unconventional solutions from the ground up. Along with the overall management of the company, he actively heads product strategy, user experience, and growth initiatives.
Gautam Kapoor received his BBA in Business from Western International University (USA). He was previously a part of his family business in industrial products import and distribution and worked with several renowned German engineering brands such as Bosch and Sick.
Role in Shiprocket – Gautam is at the helm of running logistics execution, operations, and end-to-end strategy. As the co-founder, he helps define the culture and vision of the company.
Gautam and I are childhood friends, but we were working in different industries back then. I was working with Max Life Insurance as a Business Analyst, whereas Gautam, coming from an operational and commercial background, was working in the industrial automation sector. – Saahil Goel, Co-Founder of Shiprocket
Vishesh Khurana, Head of Growth & Co-Founder, Shiprocket
Vishesh Khurana received his BBA with a specialization in Marketing from Amity Business School. Vishesh previously worked in the capacity of COO and Founder at Mobiz Infotech Pvt. Ltd., and successfully exited his first startup, following an all-cash acquisition.
Role in Shiprocket – Vishesh is actively involved in overseeing seller acquisition for the platform. He is driven to empower India’s burgeoning small and mid-sized merchants by providing a go-to destination for them to launch and manage their business online.
Vishesh joined us 6 months into the company. He was trying to bring business to us as a consultant, and we immediately recognized him as a brilliant salesperson. We wanted to work with him as a team, so we asked him to start selling for us, instead of selling for other people. And that’s how we went from 2 co-founders to 3. – Saahil Goel, Co-Founder of Shiprocket
Akshay Ghulati, Co-Founder, Shiprocket
A graduate of Wharton Business School in Economics, Akshay also received his MBA from Harvard Business School. Previously, he has worked with renowned eCommerce and technology companies like Amazon, AT Kearney, and Parthenon Group. Furthermore, he has also served as the senior manager for the PAN-Europe marketplace at Amazon. Along with being the Co-founder of Shiprocket, Ghulati has also served as a Director of Wigzo Technologies since January 2022.
Role in Shiprocket – Akshay Ghulati leads strategy, marketing, and customer success teams at Shiprocket. His focus is on executing the brand’s vision to make Shiprocket India’s leading fulfillment technology platform for SMEs.
Akshay Ghulati had joined Shiprocket in early 2016 as the Chief Business Officer. Over the years, we could see him truly demonstrating a founder mindset by committing to build Shiprocket into India’s leading logistics platform, right from the start. His persistent dedication and a high level of ownership towards projects resulted in him being elevated to Co-Founder’s status. – Saahil Goel, Co-Founder of Shiprocket.
Shiprocket has hired Tanmay Kumar to make him the CFO of the company, as of January 4, 2022. Kumar has over 22 years of experience in FMCG and retail domains and will look over Investor Relations, Fundraising, and M & A along with leading the finance, legal and secretarial teams at Shiprocket.
Current Company Size – Currently, Shiprocket has over 400 people working in all the departments globally.
Work Culture – All of Shiprocket’s teams are currently working remotely. And they know that in a remote setup where technology is all they have to connect with each other and get things done, it can be challenging to achieve the perfect work-life balance. Hence, besides the commitment towards office hours, all of their teams are encouraged to give ample time to their personal lives, as well. Also, sometimes, one may feel a bit secluded when not actively working from the office with colleagues. However, their Human Resources department always provides something to look forward to during the week. Especially in the times of COVID-19, they’re sticking together like a team through engaging virtual sessions like group meditation, talent showcase, Zumba, sit-down comedy, home fitness sessions and more.
Hiring Funda – When hiring for any team, Shiprocket ensures that the candidate must synchronously fit with the organization’s working culture. Besides analyzing their skills, education, and experience for a particular role, they also examine their ability and willingness to grow with the company, and whether they are adequately aligned with the vision of the company.
The ideation of Shiprocket was started when Saahil once figured out a gap in the Indian market that keeps MSMEs away from growing more. Saahil, co-founder of Shiprocket wanted to build a technology that will help small businesses to come online without any hassle of logistics. He started it as a part-time venture from the USA with his friend Gautam in India. Saahil later realized that he has to get into it full-time to see actual results so, he shifted to India.
Here is the ideation and startup story of Shiprocket in the words of Saahil Goel, co-founder of Shiprocket:
Even during my first job as a trainee at Max Life Insurance, I was hungry to learn all there was and had decided deep in my mind that entrepreneurship is where I will ultimately lead my career towards. This single-mindedness helped me navigate my professional life in a very different way as compared to some of my peers. I was more interested in strategy and business models as well as learning the width of every organization I worked with. I was more candid in my feedback to my teams and superiors, took more ownership, and delivered more projects much faster so I could move on to the next one. I stayed away from office politics and would always tell myself “when I build my company, here are the things I WON’T DO”. This not only helped me perform better with the organizations I worked, but also prepared me for my life in the future as an entrepreneur. In some ways, the entirety of my “pre-startup” career was an 8-year preparation to start my venture!
So, for the first six months, Gautam set up the office in New Delhi, and I started waking up at 4:00 a.m. (since I was still in the US) to work with him on our startup idea. We would work for 4 hours in the morning and then work some more in the evening. Initially, the process of setting up the business was a bit slow because I was working remotely, and Gautam Kapoor (Co-Founder, Shiprocket) and I were close friends then, but he was in India and I was in the USA. We had been toying with a bunch of ideas, and one day, out of the blue, we thought to ourselves that India has millions of small and medium sellers, and no one is building technology for them. So let’s go and build a technology that can help them go online easily. It was really that simple! We didn’t reach out to any incubators or did our own research because we were sure of the fact that eventually, eCommerce will boom in India.
Gautam was trying to convince his parents to leave the family business to start his own thing. In the first 3-4 months, we drafted a 200-page document talking about the business model, brand name, logo, and more. From there on, we primped up an office to make it look like we had something real going on there, interviewed a candidate, selected him, and had him reject us. That incident, in particular, was very demotivating for us. However, at the same time, I realized that I couldn’t keep doing this part-time. I have to commit to our startup idea full-time, and finally, when I moved back in January, we started recruiting our first engineers.
So basically, we bootstrapped our company, sold services for the first year or so to make salaries for our engineers to build the product, and eventually raised angel funding a couple of years into the startup.
Shiprocket – Name, Tagline and Logo
Shiprocket vision is to move their merchant’s business in the up direction with a high velocity, just like a rocket does. Hence, the name Shiprocket came to fruition.
Shiprocket Logo
Shiprocket – Services & Products
Shiprocket provides efficient and timely doorstep delivery to the customers. Shiprocket Social comes with a pre-integrated logistics dashboard that allows any merchant to ship products across 27,000+ pin codes PAN India and 220 countries globally. To enhance this automated delivery mechanism, this eCommerce logistics solution comes with a choice of 17+ courier partners like BlueDart, FedEx, DHL, Delhivery, etc., and an AI-powered tool, CORE (Courier Recommendation Engine) that makes optimum use of data to suggest the right courier partner to the merchant on the basis of delivery time, cost and the best rated on the list. Besides this, some of the other features that help the merchant to provide an extraordinary delivery experience to their customers and hence, build a proper retail brand are, real-time order tracking, early COD, easy returns, SMS and Email notifications, non-delivery updates, shipping rate calculator, automatic inventory sync and more. The Shiprocket rate calculator is a special add-on by Shiprocket, which allows businesses and individuals to calculate their shipping rates based on the product dimensions and area code.
As a full-stack eCommerce logistics platform, their brand enables sellers to bring their business to an online setup by creating a store and enlisting products free of cost. This can be done using one of their undertakings, Shiprocket Social, which allows any merchant to navigate through the world of social selling with ease through free features like Facebook shop, payment gateways, bulk upload of products, personalized coupon codes, sales tracking dashboard, etc.
To heighten the delivery experience even further for the customer, the merchants can use another one of our offerings, Shiprocket Packaging. It provides high-quality packaging solutions that are accessible to all, regardless of the size of their business. These packaging options are cost-effective, made with the finest material, help reduce weight-related discrepancies and reduce the manual effort of the seller by providing an automated inventory tracking feature.
As opposed to enterprise business, it is quite challenging for a small or medium-sized business to use a proper warehousing model as it can be an expensive function. To address this pain point, they introduced an eCommerce fulfilment and warehousing solution – Shiprocket Fulfillment. It is a flexible offering that helps the seller manage sudden order volume spikes during busy times of the year. With end-to-end automation, there are few chances of manual error. Hence, it reduced weight-related issues and lesser return orders. Moreover, the seller gets to provide faster delivery to their customer and do all of this at a nominal price, with no lock-in period.
Shiprocket also offers intra-city speedy delivery through Shiprocket Saral. Shiprocket Saral is a hyperlocal delivery aggregator, providing the services of expert hyperlocal partners such as Dunzo, Shadowfax, and Wefast within a distance radius of 50 km. This service can be availed in a cost-effective manner, where the merchant gets to offer several payment modes to the customer and provide order tracking for greater transparency.
Shiprocket is a logistics software service provider that follows an asset-light model. Being a logistics aggregation platform, Shiprocket brings multiple logistics service providers together. With this, it aims to help the users (e-commerce sellers) choose the right courier service provider for their needs.
What Shiprocket does is offer an automated interface, which helps connect eCommerce sellers with the right courier service provider. It is important to note here that Shiprocket doesn’t play any part in the actual pickup and delivery of the shipments because that is again taken care of by the courier service provider.
Shiprocket makes money from every shipment that is enabled/moved through its platform. Along with that, it also extends fee-based subscription options for medium-large sellers, which gives them negotiated shipping rates, numerous e-commerce channel integrations, and urgent support.
Shiprocket also provides integration facilities with e-commerce platforms like Amazon, eBay, and other online or e-commerce store management platforms like Shopify, opencart, and more. Along with these, Shiprocket also offers numerous other fee-based value-added services, which include:
Shiprocket Fulfilment: Shiprocket extends warehousing services/storage facilities for the sellers, which helps them to deliver shipments faster to their consumers.
Early COD: Shiprocket offers an Early COD (cash on delivery) service, which is a paid (fee-based) service via which a seller can get cash remittance as early as just in 2 days from the delivery date of the order.
Packaging Store: Shiprocket also operates an online store along with all the above services. In such a store, the company sells packaging materials.
Shiprocket’s metrics, shipments, revenue, and monthly active merchants have almost 3Xed on a year-on-year basis. The brand is recognized for its lowest shipping rates, where domestic shipping starts at as low as INR 22/500 grams.
The company earns its revenue on every shipment that goes through its network and from the subscription license fees. Also, there are other value-added technology services that the merchants can avail such as warehousing and fulfilment, packaging, fintech, etc., adding to their revenue.
Shiprocket Partnerships
Shiprocket has forged a strategic alliance with Shadowfax Technologies to facilitate same-day and next-day delivery services for D2C brands like boAt Lifestyle, Mamaearth, and MyGlamm. This initiative is slated to launch in India’s top 20 cities by the close of this year, with subsequent expansion into other areas of the nation in October 2022.
Shiprocket, joined forces with India Post in October 2022 to enhance the last-mile delivery services for a diverse array of e-commerce products. Leveraging India Post’s unparalleled global delivery network, this partnership seeks to streamline and optimize the delivery experience for online shoppers.
Shiprocket’s collaboration with drone delivery startup Skye Air on August 17, 2023, is set to revolutionize the shipment process by utilizing drones. This strategic partnership aims to expedite order fulfillment using Skye Air’s autonomous drone logistics solutions, effectively circumventing the challenges associated with urban traffic congestion.
Shiprocket partnered with eBay on March, 23,2023 to integrate eBay Global Shipping (ESG) with Shiprocket X, providing Indian SMEs with cost-effective and seamless cross-border shipping solutions.
Shiprocket – Marketing
The marketing campaigns at Shiprocket are designed to add value to businesses of all sizes, particularly Direct-to-consumer brands. Their brand marketing strategy is inclined towards addressing the pain points of the target market, instead of focusing on the promotion of the product solely.
Moreover, to enable proper dissemination of campaigns at a regional level, a lot of their efforts are put into designing vernacular content that finds its due space in the lives of their audiences. It consequently helps them to enable the growth and expansion of their business. This way, they accomplish customer acquisition and retention at a greater level.
Shiprocket – SHIVIR 2023
Shiprocket SHIVIR 2023 has unveiled its plans for a one-day flagship event on August 4, 2023. This event aims to unite the eCommerce sector for an educational and transformative day-long gathering, serving as a catalyst for the advancement of digital commerce in India, aptly named ‘Unnati Ka Saathi.’
Shiprocket – Launching
While launching Shiprocket, Saahil, and other co-founders faced many problems. Saahil describes his journey as follows:
When I flew back to India from the USA, I had a very demotivating recruitment experience. Finally, I realized that I couldn’t be working on our idea on a part-time basis. I had to move back to India once and for all and give all of my time and hard work into making it a success. So that’s what I did!
When I came back to India, we bootstrapped our company, spent about 20 days connecting with a few friends and talking to contacts that could help us get engineers to build the product. The thing that worked for us was that we somewhat had a clear idea of what we wanted. We had already started talking to the customers. I was building the initial few websites myself, and that would bring in enough money to pay for rent, our team’s salaries and other utilities, but it wasn’t scalable, as such. We were doing custom work back then, but it was essential to fund our actual product build.
A year later, we had a very localized, highly functional product on our hands, comprising a shopping cart and we saw some success with it, as well. Finally, we had our first 100 merchants on the platform, which was a big deal for us! And the fact that at least 100 people were using our services gave us immense hope.
– Saahil Goel, Co-Founder of Shiprocket.
Shiprocket – Growth and Revenue
The challenges you face in the 100 to 10,000consumedstomers’ journey are very different and require a different mindset and approach. For Shiprocket, the best hack has been to always hire the best people who can help solve these problems at scale. Moreover, they keep their employees always motivated to extract the best results out of their efforts. Shiprocket achieved Unicorn status on August 17, 2022 with a valuation of $1.2 billion, marking a significant milestone in its journey as a company.
As founders, we still have our ear to the ground, but we have to make sure that we have the best people to solve the operational challenges as we take on more strategic roles – Saahil Goel, Co-Founder of Shiprocket.
Here’s a look at some of the prominent growth milestones that Shiprocket has successfully scaled:
It has earned the name of India’s leading eCommerce shipping solution
Shiprocket claims to be one of the fastest logistics brands to turn profitable within 24 months
Shiprocket has been trusted by over 1 lakh brands and entrepreneurs
It boasts of having over 1 lakh satisfied sellers
Shiprocket manages to deliver 2 lakh+ shipments daily
Shiprocket is growing 3X year on year. Some of Shiprocket’s notable clients include Dr. Vaidya’s, MamaEarth, Gillette, Boat, mCaffeine, Nappa Dori, Relaxo, Proline, The Beer Cafe, Bira, Bodycare, Da Milano, Cureveda, and more. The company was valued at $930 mn, when last recorded on February 4, 2022.
Shiprocket – Financials
Shiprocket has shown significant revenue growth over the years, but its losses have also widened due to increased operational and marketing expenses.
Particulars
FY24
FY23
FY22
FY21
Revenue
INR 1,357.8 crore
INR 1,126.7 crore
INR 634.5 crore
INR 365 crore
Expenses
INR 1,708.6 crore
INR 1,422.5 crore
INR 697.8 crore
INR 350.7 crore
Profit/Loss for the Year
INR -595.2 crore
INR -359.3 crore
INR -63.6 crore
INR -12.5 crore
Shiprocket Financials FY24
Shiprocket Revenue:
Revenue has increased from INR 1,126.7 crore in FY23 to INR 1,357.8 crore in FY24, mainly driven by growth in operational revenue.
Revenue Breakdown
FY24
FY23
Revenue from Operations
INR 1,316 crore
INR 1,088.8 crore
Other Income
INR 41.9 crore
INR 37.8 crore
Total Revenue
INR 1,357.8 crore
INR 1,126.7 crore
Shiprocket Profit/Loss:
The company’s losses widened from INR 359.3 crore in FY23 to INR 595.2 crore in FY24 due to higher operational expenses and exceptional losses.
Profit/Loss Breakdown
FY24
FY23
Gross Profit
INR -350.8 crore
INR -295.9 crore
Exceptional Items Before Tax
INR -244.4 crore
INR -63.2 crore
Profit/Loss Before Tax
INR -595.2 crore
INR -359 crore
Profit/Loss for the Year
INR -595.2 crore
INR -359.3 crore
Shiprocket Expenses:
Expenses have risen from INR 1,422.5 crore in FY23 to INR 1,708.6 crore in FY24, primarily due to higher operational and employee benefit costs.
Particulars
FY24
FY23
Cost of Material Consumed
INR 1,007 crore
INR 834.5 crore
Purchases of Stock in Trade
INR 5.6 crore
INR 4.2 crore
Employee Benefit Expense
INR 430.8 crore
INR 343.8 crore
Finance Cost
INR 23.3 crore
INR 9.8 crore
Amortization & Depreciation
INR 76 crore
INR 41.4 crore
Other Expenses
INR 166.2 crore
INR 189.7 crore
Total Expenses
INR 1,708.6 crore
INR 1,422.5 crore
Quick Summary:
Revenue Growth: Increased from INR 1,126.7 Cr (FY23) to INR 1,357.8 Cr (FY24).
Expense Surge: Expenses rose from INR 1,422.5 Cr to INR 1,708.6 Cr, driven by operational and employee costs.
Widening Losses: Losses deepened from INR 359.3 Cr in FY23 to INR 595.2 Cr in FY24 due to exceptional costs.
Business Implication: Despite strong revenue growth, Shiprocket faces profitability challenges due to rising expenses and operational inefficiencies.
The operation during the pandemic has been the biggest challenge for the company in recent times. Since the beginning, they have had a strong office-based work culture. And since they operate out of a single office in Delhi, the team was not prepared for a WFH culture with their employees spread across the country.
Shiprocket almost doubled its team strength during the pandemic. However, it has been a significant challenge for them to hire and onboard so many new people without any physical interaction.
Also, the lack of working in a physical space makes it more challenging for their new hires to understand the company culture and develop a bonding with their colleagues. Nevertheless, they have worked hard to create an environment where the employees can digitally interact.
When Shiprocket was launched, its shopping cart product was for the MSME market in India. The company predicted that as it was trending in the West. However, it later realised that here, the market was quite different and demanded products that came with pure convenience.
2 years of working into the venture, we recognized that the B2B market in India does not work conventionally. For instance, our target market will not read a formal manual or anything like that – it wasn’t that simple. Also, the other thing we identified was that our target audience was more interested in making use of our shipping services and the post-order experience tools, rather than getting the website. Around 30% of our users were buying the shopping cart so that they could use our shipping services! – Saahil Goel, Co-Founder of Shiprocket
For the first 2 years, the company experimented with different features and marketing techniques. However, it finally found its direction to take Shiprocket to the next level.
Shiprocket has received a total of $424.7 million in funding over 13 rounds that it has witnessed. The latest Shiprocket funding round came from KdT Ventures, which was raised on December 29, 2024, from a Series E round.
Funding Date
Name of the Transaction
Money Raised
Lead Investors
December 29, 2024
Series E
$25.6 million
KdT Ventures
October 9, 2023
Series E
$11 million
McKinsey
Aug 17, 2022
Series E
$32 million
Lightrock, Temasek Holdings
December 10, 2021
Series E
$185 million
Zomato, Temasek, Lightrock
November 10, 2021
Corporate Round
$75 million
Zomato
July 7, 2021
Series D
$41.53 million
Bertelsmann India Investments, Info Edge ventures, PayPal Ventures
February 18, 2021
Series C
$27 million
March Tribe, Tribe Capital
May 11, 2020
Series C
$13 million
Tribe Capital
January 1, 2018
Series B
$4.1 million
Bertelsmann India Investments
January 1, 2016
Series B
$8 million
Bertelsmann India Investments
October 1, 2014
Series A
$1 million
Nirvana Venture Advisors
July 1, 2013
Seed Round
$250K
5ideas.in
Shiprocket India currently has around 10 lead investors including Lightrock, Zomato, Moore, and more.
Shiprocket – Shareholding
Shiprocket shareholding pattern as of March 2024, sourced from Tracxn:
Name
Post-Round Holding
Saahil Goel
5.4%
Gautam Kapoor
5.4%
Vishesh Khurana
1.2%
Akshay Ghulati
1.2%
Bertelsmann
23.7%
Tribe Capital
14.9%
Temasek
5.4%
March Capital
4.6%
Lightrock
4.5%
Nirvana Ventures Advisors
5.5%
Info Edge Ventures
1.9%
Moore Strategic Ventures
0.8%
Beenext
0.8%
500 Global
0.6%
DST Global
0.4%
Beenos
0.4%
Agility
0.3%
Innoven Capital
0.2%
9Unicorns
0.1%
Gupta Goyal Revocable Trust
< 0.1%
QED Innovation Labs
< 0.1%
Transaction Square
< 0.1%
5ideas
–
Recruit Strategic Partners
–
Gabelhorn
–
100Unicorns
–
Zomato
7.0%
PayPal
1.8%
Arvind
1.6%
Afos
0.9%
Razorpay
0.1%
Huddle Collective
< 0.1%
Do Moonstone Advisors
< 0.1%
Culture Cap
< 0.1%
Blc and Associates
< 0.1%
Angel
< 0.1%
Other People
3.0%
ESOP Pool
8.1%
Total
100.0%
Shiprocket Shareholding
Shiprocket – Investments
Shiprocket has made 5 prominent investments to date, which are in Bold Care, Logibricks, Evenflow, Perfora and ShoprTV. Here’s a look at them:
Date
Company Name
Funding Round
Deal Value
Lead Investor
Oct 26, 2022
SomeMoreFoods
Grant
–
Yes
Oct 18, 2022
ShoprTV
Seed Round
$1.8 million
–
Jun 22, 2022
Perfora
Seed Round
$894k
–
February 15, 2022
Bold Care
Seed Round
–
–
February 4, 2022
Logibricks Technologies
Seed Round
$1.5 million
Yes
December 14, 2021
Evenflow
Seed Round
$5 million
–
Shiprocket – Acquisitions
Shiprocket has acquired 5 companies to date. Shiprocket completed the acquisition of Omuni, the omnichannel technology business of Arvind, in a combination deal of cash and stock worth Rs 200 crore on July 19, 2022. According to the BSE fillings of Arvind, this acquisition would help the companies with quick and efficient deliveries of shipments from the nearest warehouses and stores. It will thus reduce the delivery timelines and boost customer satisfaction effectively.
It last acquired Pickrr on June 15, 2022, when it picked up an 80% stake in the company in a deal worth $200 mn. Shiprocket also has plans to completely acquire Pickrr, thereby helping the investors exit the startup and absorb the Pickrr team. The Pickrr founders would also be getting undisclosed stakes in Shiprocket.
It previously acquired Glaucus Supply Chain Solutions on February 14, 2022. Shiprocket is also planning to acquire the Indian business of Shyplite, and is currently in the final stages of the acquisition, as of June 15, 2022. Here’s take a deep look at the Shiprocket acquisitions:
Company Name
Date
Deal Value
Omuni
July 19, 2022
$25.03 mn
Pickrr Technologies
June 15, 2022
$200 mn
Glaucus Supply Chain Solutions
February 14, 2022
–
Rocketbox
January 14, 2022
–
Wigzo Technologies
January 7, 2022
–
Shiprocket – Advisors and Mentors
The investors of Shiprocket play an important role in mentoring them through the startup journey.
Key mentors of Shiprocket are:
Pankaj Makkar from Bertelsmann India Investments
Rajan Mehra from Nirvana Ventures
Arjun Sethi from Tribe Capital
Teruhide Sato from Beenext
Shiprocket – Awards & Recognitions
Shiprocket was recently awarded the BW Businessworld Techtors Award for being the ‘Top Tech Companies to Watch Out for’ Under the “Aggregator/Listing” category.
Shiprocket – Competitors
Shiprocket has quite a few competitors operating in the same space out of which the company has already acquired its rival Pickrr. Some other Shiprocket competitors include:
Shiprocket’s head office is based in New Delhi. Their undertaking, Shiprocket Fulfillment, an eCommerce fulfillment and warehousing solution for small and medium sellers, has its storage hubs actively operating across 5 major cities: Delhi, Gurgaon, Bangalore, Mumbai, and Kolkata.
Shiprocket’s future plans focus on using AI to enhance predictive analytics, enabling more accurate shipping predictions. The company aims to automate additional workflow processes, increasing efficiency and reducing manual tasks. In addition, Shiprocket is set to expand into international markets, broadening its reach and capabilities. A key goal is to continuously improve the customer experience, ensuring smoother and more reliable service for businesses and their customers.
Shiprocket is currently planning some new strategic initiatives, including hyperlocal delivery services, growing courier partnerships, fulfillment networks, and global expansion, which will be starting from West Asia. It has also started funding for the same.
Conclusion
Shiprocket is a tech-enabled logistics platform connecting merchants, consumers, and supply chain partners through its eCommerce shipping solutions. All of their offerings aim to make the merchants’ online selling experience as seamless as possible. By making the best use of AI and data, Shiprocket helps to provide maximum cost efficiency per shipment. It helps their sellers’ ventures to remain lucrative and perpetually head toward expansion.
FAQs
What is Shiprocket?
Shiprocket is a tech-enabled logistic platform that provides affordable plans to MSMEs so that they can come online and sell anywhere they want.
What does Shiprocket do?
Shiprocket, founded in 2017 provides many benefits like warehousing, packaging, and other related services. Moreover, their platform includes many other integrations, which help the merchants and sellers to manage the deliveries.
What is the founder of Shiprocket?
Saahil Goel, Akshay Ghulati, Gautam Kapoor and Vishesh Khurana are the co-founders of Shiprocket.
What is the use of Shiprocket?
Shiprocket provides its customers the liberty to schedule pickups from anywhere in the country. There is also an option to add multiple addresses and select a different pickup address for every shipment.
Can individuals use Shiprocket?
If you are wondering, “can I use Shiprocket for personal use?” then it is important to know that every individual can use the Shiprocket service but not for any illegal or unauthorized purpose.
Does Shiprocket do packaging?
Shiprocket has an innovative packaging solution for SMEs to optimise fulfilment with quality packaging material and a data-backed platform. Map SKUs with packaging material and reduce weight discrepancies for simplified order management.
Who are Shiprocket owner?
Shiprocket was founded by Saahil Goel, Vineet Jain, and Suraj Saharan.
Who are the Shiprocket delivery partners?
The Shiprocket delivery partners include reputed courier companies like:
Shiprocket sign up is a process that the users need to go through before they can start using Shiprocket services. The Sign Up process is absolutely free for all.
What is Shiprocket price rate calculator?
Shiprocket rate calculator or Shiprocket price calculator as it is commonly referred to is a rate calculator that helps the users calculate their shipping rates easily just with the help of their area code and the product dimensions. The Shiprocket rate calculator is really effective for Shiprocket e-commerce websites and companies that are eager to know their shipping rates and budget accordingly.
What is Shiprocket business model?
Shiprocket is a logistics aggregator that connects e-commerce sellers with courier partners, enabling fast and cost-effective shipping. It earns revenue from delivery fees, subscription plans, and value-added services like fulfillment and warehousing.
How does Shiprocket work?
Shiprocket helps e-commerce businesses ship products by connecting them with courier partners. It handles shipping, tracking, and returns automatically.
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Logistics has always been an important sector for any country, including India, but the space had never seen such a ground-breaking turn before Delhivery came into being.Proving itself since 2011 as a great startup, this company is now a backbone for the logistics industry.
Delhivery is currently one of the leading players in the logistics space in the country.It offers a full suite of services such as last-mile delivery, third-party and transit warehousing, reverse logistics, payment collection, vendor-to-warehouse, vendor-to-customer shipping, and more.
Delhivery became a unicorn in 2019 when it raised $413 million in a Series F round led by SoftBank Vision Fund, Carlyle Group, and Fosun International. It was then valued at$1.5 billion. Delhivery was last been valued at $4.77 billion in May 2022.
Read this article to learn about Delhivery’s Startup story, Founders, Business Model, how it started, Growth, Competitors, Funding, and Investors.
Delhivery Company Details
Startup Name
Delhivery
Headquarters
Gurgaon, India
Sector
Logistics
Founders
Kapil Bharati, Sahil Barua, Suraj Saharan, Mohit Tandon (Exited March 29, 2021), and Bhavesh Manglani (Exited March 29, 2021)
Delhivery is a prominent courier services, logistics, and supply chain solutions company that enthusiastically works with individuals and businesses. Founded back in May 2011, Delhivery is headquartered in Gurugram, Haryana, India,and provides a range of services, including last-mile delivery, third-party and transit warehousing, reverse logistics, payment collection, vendor-to-warehouse, vendor-to-customer shipping, and more.
The company is backed by Times Internet Ltd, which acquired a minority stake in the firm in June last year.
Having three responsibilities on its shoulders – fulfillment, omnichannel, and data services, the company’s focus is to deliver the best service without any waste of chances in solving the customers’ problems.
It provides the products and services intended to build trust and improve the lives of consumers, small businesses, enterprises, and their growing teams of employees and partners. Delhivery is disrupting India’s logistics industry with the help of its proprietary network design, infrastructure, partnerships, engineering, and technological capabilities.
Delhivery brings unparalleled cost efficiency and pan-India reach to its 10,000+ customers. Driven by its mission to shrink time and distance, Delhivery aims to make the world a smaller place for its customers. Powered by an effective and streamlined Delhivery business plan, the company is emerging as one of the leading players in the supply chain and logistics space, so much so that it can be referred to as one of such courier and logistics startups that have paved a new path for the delivery of products. Besides, Delhiveryis driven by a constant focus on its customers and serving them with quality products, thereby building confidence and trust for the brand.
Delhivery – Industry
The country’s logistics industry, which is worth around $160 billion is likely to grow by an expected CAGR of 10% and touch $215 billion in the next two years with the implementation of GST. However, most of the industry was largely torn into unorganized players where the arrival of Delhivery can be simply termed as a phenomenon that has completely changed the industry and the way it works.
Here comes the biggest reach of Delhivery where they have over 1400 serviceable pin codes on their list and 19,990+ sq ft of warehouse space in Delhi as well as in Bangalore. Delhivery has a lot of partners with whom it aims to increase the product reach and to cope with those partners, the company also offers third-party warehousing and transit warehousing.
Along with numerous e-commerce brands like Flipkart, Amazon, eBay, Snapdeal, Jabong, and Healthkart, customers, Delhivery company also manages its customer base that comprises many other businesses and individuals.
Delhivery – Founders and Team
Delhivery was started by a bunch of engineers – Bhavesh Manglani, Kapil Bharati, Mohit Tandon, Sahil Barua, and Suraj Saharan.
Delhivery Founders
Sahil Barua
Another Bain & Company consultant Sahil Barua was a BE Mechanical Engineering student at NIT Karnataka. Sahil Barua, who currently serves as the Co-founder and CEO of Delhivery, completed his graduation and then went on to pursue a PGDM course at IIM Bangalore. Sahil finally decided to co-found Delhivery together with the other founders.
Kapil Bharati
Kapil Bharati is the Co-founder and CTO at Delhivery. He is an alumnus of IIT Delhi, from where he completed his Btech degree in Mechanical Engineering. Bharati served as the Technical Lead at Hindustan Times for livemint.com and the HT blogs and then joined SapientNitro as a Senior Manager of technology. Bharati had earlier co-founded two other companies – 11Rupees and Contify.com, before co-founding Delhivery.
Bhavesh Manglani
Bhavesh Manglani was another Co-founder of Delhivery, who left the company on March 29, 2021. Manglani was a PGDCM/MBA, Systems, Finance student at IIM Calcutta, which he completed after obtaining his BTech in Information and Communication Technology. Bhavesh has had earlier experience working as a Manager – Usage and Revenue Enhancement, Prepaid Mobile, All India, and as a Product Manager at Reliance Communications and Idea Cellular Ltd. before he co-founded Delhivery.
Mohit Tandon
Mohit Tandon is an IIT Kanpur alumnus and eventually joined Bain & Company after completing his graduation, where he served as a Consultant for around 5 years before co-founding Delhivery. Tandon had been a Co-founder of Delhivery, before he left the company on March 29, 2021.
Suraj Saharan
Suraj Saharan was also an ex-Bain & Company consultant, who started with ICICI Lombard as a Customer Service Manager and eventually co-founded Delhivery. Saharan is an IIT Bombay alumnus, from where he obtained a BTech degree in Mechanical Engineering. Saharan is also a co-founder of the company.
To increase the quality of the products delivered by Delhivery, Suvayu Ali (Data Scientist at Delhivery) kept a special check on the market of these technical matters with an algorithm, which is one of the projects that a team of data scientists at Delhivery, led by former entrepreneur and Facebook’s data scientist Santanu Bhattacharya, is working on.
Delhivery added Namita Thapar (ED, Emcure Pharmaceuticals) and Sameer Mehta (CEO, boAt) to its board. The company said that the appointment of the two will come into effect from February 17, 2025. The company also appointed ex-Airtel Global CEO Vani Venkatesh as CBO, effective February 28, 2025.
Delhivery currently boasts of a team that is 66000+ employees strong.
Delhivery – Startup Story
It was approximately half-past eleven at night when Suraj and Sahil ordered food from a nearby restaurant in Gurgaon. When they had the delivery man standing in front of their door, they got chatty with the delivery person, who spoke of the problem of unemployment that was about to break out. This made the founders rush down to the store and talk to the manager. Soon they were at the restaurant, talking to the owner, who further elaborated on his plans of closing down the business and moving his staff elsewhere. Here’s where Sahil and Suraj decided to start their delivery business, Delhivery. Yes, they hired all of them!
Sahil narrated the exact conversation between him and the owner of the restaurant – “It was 11.30 at night, I still remember, we took our bikes and went to meet the owner, Anuj Bajaj, who was surprisingly still there. He said he was shutting the restaurant down. He was really happy we had come because he wanted his staff to relocate somewhere. We said bring it on, we’ll hire everybody.”
Delhivery – Name, Tagline, and Logo
Delhivery – Logo
Delhivery has stuck with a simple but eye-catching logo where the name of the brand is displayed in black.
Delhivery tagline – ‘Small World‘, Delhivery is changing the logistics market making the world smaller with its new strategy of delivering fast.
Delhivery – Mission and Vision
Delhivery’s mission is to simplify the movement of goods. It aims to change the world, one shipment at a time.
The vision of the company is to “become the operating system for commerce in India, through a combination of world-class infrastructure, logistics operations of the highest quality and cutting-edge engineering and technology capabilities.”
Delhivery – Business Model and Revenue Model
Delhivery has currently been hailed as India’s leading supply chain services company. It is one of India’s largest B2B, B2C, and C2C Logistics Courier Service providers. The company is best known for the economical shipping rates that it charges for its services. Furthermore, Delhivery company claims to have – No Setup Fees or Subscription Charges!
The services offered by Delhivery can be divided into 3 primary departments:
Warehousing – Flexible warehousing across 40+ cities in India
Transportation – Largest pan-India reach across 19000+ pin codes and 2500+ cities
Ecommerce – Ready integration with Shopify, WooCommerce, Magento & Opencart.
Delhivery – Growth and Revenue
Founded in Gurgaon, Delhivery was initially a small business with only 5 members in total for all their work, from accounts to product service to delivery hookups. However, within a short period, the company hired more than 15,000 people across a range of departments including deliverymen, account keepers, and many others, some of whom were solely dedicated to looking after customer satisfaction and managing deliveries along with providing extensive help and support with the customer issues.
Delhivery Growth Statistics
The growth of Delhivery has been documented until the year 2024 are as follows:
Since its inception, the company has successfully shipped a remarkable 2.8 billion parcels as of September 2024.
A total of more than 18,700 pin codes are served.
It has covered 18 million+ square feet of logistics.
A total of over 26,500 businesses have been served.
The company boasts of a collection of 85+ packing warehouses in total across the country
It has around 29 automated sort centres
Delhivery has around 160 hubs
7,500+ partner centres
Furthermore, Delhivery claims to possess a capacity to process more than 15 lakh (around 1.5 million) parcels per day in India across 2,300 towns and cities.
All of these are possible mainly because of its network of nearly 7,000 drivers and over 5,000 trucks. Delhivery is also building some of the country’s largest trucking terminals at key locations in Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Kolkata, and Chennai.
The company culture aims at making every individual experience working in the trenches as a delivery boy, for at least twelve hours a week, to promote teamwork and efficiency among the employees.
In an interview, Sahil Barua quoted some wonderful lines for his employees “After every 20 minutes I get up and go talk to a team member. Thanks to this, I know everyone in our office by their first name. We have that kind of openness in the office where people can tell us what they think. That is what keeps us going”.
The Rise and Fall of the Delhivery Shares
Delhivery shares rose by 6.34% on June 2, 2022, which closed at INR 570. It reached INR 617.70 during this season, which was an all-time high intraday. This was reset again when Delhivery shares reached INR 683.35 on July 20, 2022. Among the new-age tech stocks, it was only Nykaa‘s shares, which rose by 1.05% to INR 1470.95. All the other stocks of Policy Bazaar, PB Fintech, Paytm, and Zomato fell recently, as reported on June 3, 2022. Delhivery shares continued to hold its winning streak for the third season straight. The shares of Delhivery ended 6% and 4% higher on consecutive days to end at INR 699.95 on the BSE as per July 21, 2022 reports. With this, the market capitalization of Delhivery crossed the INR 50,000 crore mark, which helped Delhivery be clubbed together in the house of the top 100 Indian companies with the highest market capitalization.
Delhivery has launched something big called ‘Company One.’ It’s a super modern digital shipping platform made to help small businesses. This cool invention puts together lots of shipping services. It’s not just about talking to customers after they buy things and using smart data, but also about easily sending things to other countries, quickly connecting to different places where they sell stuff, and handling reports about things that couldn’t be delivered. All of this brings a totally new and really smart way of shipping and delivering things for these small businesses.
This new system will enable small businesses to ship their products without needing to meet a minimum order requirement. They can start shipping by adding a minimum of INR 500 to their wallet. With Delhivery One, small businesses can now ship their products to more than 220 countries. This is made possible through Delhivery’s partnership with FedEx, a well-known logistics company. Delhivery is also working on making the digital platform even better. They are planning to add new features like connecting to various online marketplaces and creating a mobile app called “Delhivery One“,
Delhivery – Financials
Delhivery has shown consistent growth in revenue over the past few years. However, the company has faced losses during this period, with expenses rising and net losses narrowing down in the most recent financial year (FY24).
Delhivery Financials
FY24
FY23
FY22
FY21
FY20
Total Revenue
INR 8594.2crore
INR 7530.2 crore
INR 7038.4 crore
INR 3838.3 crore
INR 2988.6 crore
Total Expenses
INR 8825 crore
INR 8597 crore
INR 8064.5 crore
INR 4212.7 crore
INR 3257.4 crore
Profit/Loss
INR -249.2 crore
INR -1007.8 crore
INR -1011 crore
INR -415.7 crore
INR -268.9 crore
Delhivery Financials 2024
Delhivery’s revenue has steadily increased from INR 2,988.6 crore in FY20 to INR 8,594.2 crore in FY24. Despite revenue growth, the company continues to incur losses, though the losses narrowed from INR 1,011 crore in FY22 to INR 249.2 crore in FY24.
Delhivery Revenue Breakdown
Particulars
FY24
FY23
Revenue from Product/Service Sales
INR 8,141.5 crore
INR 7,225.3 crore
Other Income
INR 452.7 crore
INR 304.9 crore
Revenue from product/service sales in FY24 showed a significant rise, reaching INR 8,141.5 crore compared to INR 7,225.3 crore in FY23. Other income also increased, moving from INR 304.9 crore in FY23 to INR 452.7 crore in FY24.
Delhivery Expense Breakdown
Particulars
FY24
FY23
Freight, Handling & Servicing Costs
INR 5,970.7 crore
INR 5,669.5 crore
Employee Benefits Expense
INR 1,436.8 crore
INR 1,400 crore
Finance Costs
INR 88.5 crore
INR 88.8 crore
Amortization & Depreciation
INR 721.5 crore
INR 831.1 crore
Other Expenses
INR 607.4 crore
INR 605.8 crore
Delhivery’s expenses have been fairly stable from FY23 to FY24, with freight and handling costs rising slightly from INR 5,669.5 Cr to INR 5,970.7 Cr. Amortization & depreciation costs decreased from INR 831.1 Cr to INR 721.5 Cr, contributing to some cost control.
Delhivery Profit/Loss
Particulars
FY24
FY23
Gross Profit
– INR 249.2 crore
– INR 1,007.8 crore
Operating Profit
– INR 244.4 crore
– INR 1,053.1 crore
Net Profit/(Loss)
– INR 249.2 crore
– INR 1,007.8 crore
Despite revenue growth, Delhivery has yet to achieve profitability. The company’s losses decreased from INR 1,007.8 crore in FY23 to INR 249.2 crore in FY24, reflecting improvements in cost management and revenue generation.
Quick Summary
Revenue Growth: Increased from INR 2,988.6 Cr (FY20) to INR 8,594.2 Cr (FY24), driven by a rise in service sales.
Loss Reduction: Losses narrowed from INR 1,011 Cr in FY22 to INR 249.2 Cr in FY24.
Stable Expenses: Slight rise in freight and handling costs with a decrease in amortization and depreciation.
Profitability still a Challenge: Despite improvements, the company remains in the red for the past five years.
Delhivery – Funding and Investors
Delhivery has raised a total of $1.69B in funding over 15 rounds. The company raised a funding round worth $303.73 million (INR 2347 crore) led by 64 anchor investors including Stead View, Tiger Global, Bay Capital, and more, before its IPO on May 11, 2022. As per the company filings, Delhivery allotted 48 million shares to the anchor investors at INR 487 each.
The previous round of the company came in on September 24, 2021, led by Addition. This has helped it raise around $125 million. The company also witnessed funds equal to INR 558 crore ($76.34 million) in the previous round dated September 6, 2021. The Series I round of funding was also led by Lee Fixel’s Addition LLC. Delhivery is currently valued at $4.77 billion, as of May 2022.
Here is a list of all the funding rounds of Delhivery:
Date
Stage
Amount
Investors
May 11,2022
Pre-IPO
$303.73 million
Tiger Global Bay
September 24,2021
–
$125 million
Lee Fixel’s Addition LLC
September 6,2021
Series I
$76.34 million
Lee Fixel’s Addition LLC
July 16, 2021
–
$100 million
FedEx Express
May 30, 2021
Series H
$277 million
Fidelity Investments
December 15, 2020
Secondary Market
$25 million
Steadview capital
September 9,2019
Secondary Market
$115 million
Canada Pension Plan Investment Board
June 17, 2019
Secondary Market
$150 million
Canada Pension Plan Investment Board
March 24, 2019
Series F
$413 million
SoftBank Vision Fund, Carlyle Group
May 22, 2017
Series E
$30 million
Fosun International
March 23, 2017
Series E
$100 million
Carlyle Group, Tiger Global
May 6, 2015
Series D
$85 million
Tiger Global Management
September 8, 2014
Series C
$35 million
Multiple Alternate Asset Management
September 30, 2013
Series B
$5 million
Nexus Venture Partners
April 2012
Series A
$1.5 million
Times Internet Limited
The logistics giant has allotted 146,961 Series I Compulsory Convertible Preference shares (CCPS) to Addition LLC valued at Rs 37, 900 per share, according to the MCA filings of the brand as of September 6, 2021.
Delhivery – Shareholding
Delhivery’s shareholding pattern as of April 2022, sourced from Tracxn:
Delhivery Shareholders
Percentage
Sahil Barua
1.9%
Mohit Tandon
1.6%
Suraj Saharan
1.6%
Kapil Bharati
1.0%
Bhavesh Manglani
0.3%
SoftBank
19.6%
The Carlyle Group
9.1%
Nexus Venture Partners
9.2%
CPP Investments
6.1%
Tiger Global Management
5.3%
Brand Capital
5.6%
Fosun
3.1%
Alpine Capital
3.4%
GIC
2.1%
Addition
2.4%
Steadview
2.7%
Chimera
1.4%
Fidelity Investments
3.5%
Baillie Gifford
0.7%
Ab Initio Capital
0.3%
RPS Ventures
0.5%
Avendus
< 0.1%
Malabar Investments
< 0.1%
Multiples Alternate Asset Management
–
FedEx
2.9%
Angel
< 0.1%
Other People
1.4%
ESOP Pool
11.0%
Other Investors
3.2%
Total
100.0%
Delhivery Shareholding
Delhivery – IPO
Delhivery eyed an IPO round of around $1 billion and filed its Draft Red Herring Prospectus on October 7, 2021. The company had already received approval from its shareholders to turn into a public entity by then, and soon afterward, it was converted from Delhivery Private Limited to Delhivery Limited. Delhivery, which earlier anticipated raising a total of INR 7460 crore in its IPO, had reduced its IPO size to INR 5500 crore, which was 26.27% less than what the company proposed earlier. On a sitting with the Board of Delhivery, the company decided to open its IPO after the closure of the LIC IPO, the subscription window of which is closing on May 9th, 2022. The valuation that Delhivery targeted with its IPO was mentioned somewhere around $5 billion as per the reports dated May 5, 2022.
Delhivery opened its IPO on May 11th, 2022, which opened to a customary start where the total subscriptions hovered at 4%. While the retail subscription was subscribed to 23%, the employee share quota was at 4% subscriptions after 2 hours of the Delhivery listing. What can be called a lukewarm start, the Delhivery IPO seemed to lack market liquidity, coming just after LIC’s mega IPO round, which closed on May 9, 2022. Morgan Stanley, Citigroup, BofA Securities, and Kotak Mahindra Capital were some of the book-running lead managers to the Delhivery IPO. Delhivery witnessed a tepid response on its first day of IPO with 21% overall subscriptions. At the close of the day, the retail portion was subscribed 30% while the portion of the Qualified Institutional Investors (QII) followed in with around 29% subscriptions. The employee’s quota of Delhivery was subscribed to around 6% while that of the Non-Institutional Buyers (NIB) remained subscribed at 1% only.
The Delhivery shares were listed at INR 493 per share, which was 1.2% higher than their issue price, INR 487, on the BSE, whereas on the NSE, the Delhivery shares were listed at 1.7% higher than the issue price, at INR 495.2. However, the shares continued gaining on a listing day to stand at INR 537.25, which is 9% higher at the closing on the BSE, and stood 10.1% higher at INR 536.25 on the NSE. The Delhivery stocks were listed on May 24, 2022, on the BSE and NSE, and the very next, it was found that the shares by 4.73% to INR 511 on the NSE. The valuation of Delhivery, which was previously valued at INR 35,283 crore ($4.55 billion) before its IPO, stood at INR 37,022 crore ($4.77 billion) at the end of the listing day.
With the listing of its shares on May 24, 2022, Delhivery turned out as the first tech startup to go public in the season where negative sentiment was dominating the public listing. However, the Delhivery IPO turned out to be a money-making event for its big investors. Softbank, which entered the cap table of Delhivery in 2019, had 14,15,93,300 shares, out of which the Japanese company sold 7,494,867 equity shares or 5% stakes and received over 148% ROI. On the other hand, Times Internet, which was one of the early backers of the company, held 4.92% stakes in the firm and sold shares worth $21 million in the Delhivery IPO, thereby gaining 139X returns.
Delhivery – ESOPs
The company initially decided to expand its employee stock option plans (ESOP) pool that will be overlooking its $1 Bn-IPO, when it allotted 11,614 shares valued at $126.6K to its employees in 2019. The IPO value was later reduced to ($677.81 mn) Rs 5235 crore. It then allotted 9,545 shares (Rs 2,895 each) valued at Rs 2.84 cr to 12 of its employees. This was decided via an extraordinary general meeting (EGM) on September 29, 2021.
Delhivery announced the allotment of ESOPs worth Rs 43.6 crore to around 66 employees as soon as it filed its DRHP for its first IPO, as per November 2021 reports. According to the company filings, Delhivery declared the allotment of 12,17,500 equity shares to over more than 5 dozen employees on the exercise of their stock options.
Delhivery presented 9 items that included ESOP 2012, Delhivery ESOP II 2020, Delhivery ESOP III 2020, Delhivery ESOP IV 2021, Article of Associations, and other allied schemes for voting in front of its stakeholders. Interestingly, the institutional shareholders (72% of them) have largely voted against these ESOP schemes, as per reports dated July 18, 2022. However, the ESOP schemes were still passed with the votes of the non-public institutions and promoters in the company meeting. The presentation of the ESOP schemes of Delhivery was in line with the SEBI policy, which does not allow listed companies to make any fresh grant related to the transferring of shares to their employees if the Pre-IPO ESOP schemes are not approved by the shareholders.
Delhivery – Partnerships
Delhivery partnered with many organizations thus far. Among its prominent partnerships include its collaboration with Volvo in August 2020 with an aim to add tractor-trailers into its express network.
“This is the first major deployment of tractor-trailers in express trucking which is a significant step for Delhivery towards getting ready for the future and towards expanding our network and building our leadership position in this market further,” said Sahil Barua, Co-Founder of Delhivery.
The company has also partnered with FedEx Express for a strategic alliance transaction, which was earlier signed in July and completed on December 9, 2021. This transaction is deemed to combine the extensive pan-India network and technology solutions of Delhivery with the global network that FedEx boasts of. This will help the customers get the best of both worlds together.
Delhivery – Competitors
As Delhivery is a logistics company, and obviously, Delhivery thrives amidst huge market competition from some of the companies like:
It is because of the competition in the market that customers get different choices, and all of them more or less closely match each other when it comes to quality.
The company has acquired 3 startups as of December 8, 2021. The latest acquisition came in on December 8, 2021, when Delhivery acquired Transition Robotics, a California-based startup that is currently focussing on the development of the Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) platforms, founded by Jeff Gibboney in 2011. This will allow the supply chain services unicorn to be directly involved with the core drone technology, the “regulations and use cases” of which, “are evolving in the country”, CTO Kapil Bharati said.
Acquiree Name
Date
Price
Transition Robotics
December 8, 2021
–
Spoton Logistics
Aug 1, 2021
$200 mn
Primaseller
Mar 3, 2021
–
Delhivery, which is eyeing the filing of its Draft Red Herring Prospectus (DRHP), has already issued bonus shares to shareholders. The logistics and supply chain startup held an extraordinary general meeting (EGM) on September 29, where it announced that it would allot fully paid-up 1.68 Cr bonus shares worth INR 10, to equity shareholders. This will be in the ratio of 9:1.
The logistics unicorn has allotted 1,68,46,803 shares of Rs 10 each, which increased the total number of shares from 18,71,868 to 1,87,18,670 bonus shares. These shares would be allotted to 90 existing equity shareholders of the company, as per the reports dated October 4, 2021.
The company has allotted 12.29 Lakh bonus shares, where the Founder of the company, Sahil Barua boasts of having the highest shares when it comes to the founders of the startup. Times Internet and CPPIB are the other prominent shareholders, which were allotted 28.53 Lakh and 23.80 Lakh shares respectively, which are the highest that the investors of the company got.
Delhivery – Future Plans
Delhivery will continue to aggressively invest in building trucking infrastructure and is planning to invest up to Rs 300 crore in the next 24 months to expand its fleet size. The company announced it has set up a fully owned subsidiary, Delhivery Robotics Pvt Ltd, to focus on drone technology research and manufacturing.
The Chief Operating Officer of Delhivery, Ajith Pai explained Delhivery’s global strategy, highlighting its focus on connecting India with the world rather than building a physical network abroad. He emphasized that the company prioritizes smooth access into and out of India over setting up operations overseas.
FAQs
Who are Delhivery Founders/Owners?
Delhivery was founded by Bhavesh Manglani, Kapil Bharati, Mohit Tandon, Sahil Barua, and Suraj Saharan.
Which is Delhivery Parent Company?
Delhivery Pvt Ltd. is the company that owns Delhivery.
What is Delhivery courier service?
Delhivery offers a full suite of services such as last-mile delivery, third-party and transit warehousing, reverse logistics, payment collection, vendor-to-warehouse, vendor-to-customer shipping, and more.
Who is the CEO of Delhivery?
Sahil Barua is the Founder and CEO of Delhivery.
How does Delhivery delivery tracking work?
Delivery tracking uses a unique tracking number to monitor a package’s journey from dispatch to delivery. Customers can check its status and location in real-time via the courier’s website or app.
Who are the Top Competitors of Delhivery?
As Delhivery is a logistics company, it is obvious that it has great competition in the market. Some of the very state rivals are:
Ecom Express
DotZot
FSC (Future Supply Chain)
BlackBuck
Delex
Delivery.com
How can you use Delhivery tracking?
You can easily use the Delhivery tracking facility by simply visiting the Delhivery homepage and the “Track your order” section, where you need to type Mobile Number/Tracking ID/Order No./Reference No./LTI Shipment (LRN No.) to get your order tracked effectively.
What are Delhivery courier service charges?
The Delhivery courier service charges are based on the weight of the order or parcel.
What is Delhivery Business Model?
Delhivery is a logistics company providing parcel delivery, warehousing, and supply chain services. It focuses on e-commerce, offering tech-driven solutions to manage shipping and fulfillment. Revenue comes from service charges and additional offerings like warehousing.
Where is hq of Delhivery?
The headquarters of Delhivery are located in Gurugram.
Is Delhivery a unicorn?
Yes, Delhivery is a Unicorn.
Who owns Delhivery?
Funds own the majority of Delhivery, a logistics company, with 74.98% of the shares.
What is Delhivery Net Worth?
Delhivery’s latest financial report shows it has net assets worth INR 92.50 billion.
Company Profile is an initiative by StartupTalky to publish verified information on different startups and organizations. The content in this post has been approved by Ezyhaul.
The Logistics service has been here since the beginning of civilization, and as we are getting evolved, and things are getting better. Technology has turned the world into a Sci-fi movie. With the digital revolution that our country is experiencing, the logistic sector has also changed completely. To aid this process with digital excellence, Mudasar Mohamed, Raymond Gillon, and Nicky Lum founded Ezyhaul in 2016.
Ezyhaul is a one of the most popular and leading digital road freight platform in Southeast Asia, is the online platform using which clients can make bookings for B2B domestic short and haul, and cross-border shipments.
Ezyhaul is a digital tech company whose main focus is to transform the road freight industry, it is basically a digital road freight platform serving the people in South Asia.
Ezyhaul is essentially a modern-day digital broker that let your clients book domestic and cross-border transportation services online. The company has taken on itself to solve the problems of logistics and that is scale, professionalism, and analytics.
Ezyhaul is a platform that focuses on connecting shippers with carriers who have enough space on their trucks. The platform enables you to use a real-time tracker to track shipments. It has launched control towers so that the truck movement can be monitored and the arrival of your shipments can be predicted.
The main goal of this innovative platform named Ezyhaul is to transform transportation logistics by creating an ecosystem that surrounded shippers, truckers, government agencies, and third-party service providers. The aim of the company is to use technology in the transport business that is otherwise has been paper-based.
Ezyhaul – Industry Details
Ezyhaul works across sectors and some of their clients on demand-side include Reliance, Exide, Pidilite, Shell, Amazon, etc. On the Supply-side, the company works typically with small and medium side transportation companies. Since they operate in India and South East Asia, the app equally concentrates on both the market.
Ezyhaul Website
Southeast Asian transport market size is $36 billion and the Indian transport market size is $160 billion. In the next five years, the team is expecting an increase in digitization in the transport space with faster adoption of new-age technologies and they believe that Ezyhaul will be a resource for this change.
Ezyhaul – Founders and Team
Mudasar Mohamed, Raymond Gillon, and Nicky Lum are the founders of Ezyhaul.
Ezyhaul founders
Ezyhaul cofounders were colleagues at UTI worldwide. Raymond Gillon is dutch, Nicky Lum is Malaysian and Mudasar Mohamed is an Indian. The three co-founders spoke, discussed, planned about launching a startup on digital broker model and transport space. Just a month later, Ezyhaul was incorporated.
Raymond Gillon, Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer – He was a Managing Director (Vietnam and Cambodia) in UTI Worldwide Inc. He is an Engineer and MBA from INSEAD.
Mudasar Mohamed, Co-Founder and Chief Operating Officer – He was Managing Director (Singapore and Malaysia) in UTI Worldwide Inc. He is an Engineer and MBA from the University of Southern California – Marshall School of Business.
Nicky Lum, Co-Founder and Director – He had Sales Roles in companies like UTI Worldwide Inc and Kuehne Nagel.
Given that the company operates in multiple countries, the founders have split their time in different markets. For example, Mudasar takes care of India while Raymond, Nicky along with a couple of more professionals take care of South East Asia. Other executive team members of Ezyhaul are: Mark Debattista – Vice President of Sales, and Eric Soo – Head of Technology.
Ezyhaul has over 242 employees and the co-founders firmly believe in creating a joyful, respectful, and humane environment for all members of the company.
Ezyhaul – How was Ezyhaul Started?
The three co-founders earlier used to work at a Multinational Corporation logistics corporate in Singapore. They all had leadership goals and roles in the Logistics Company. Observing the supply-and-demand problem for large businesses, together they decided to start up a company to solve the problem.
When two of the co-founders were working in the United States, they realized that in the transport industry, the concept of brokers is very common. At the same time, digital platforms like Uber were revolutionizing in the action of demand-and-supply in the transport space. Understanding it all, the co-founders saw an opportunity to re-engineer the historical broker model and use modern technologies to connect the supply chain.
To revalidate the model, the founders spoke to several leaders from the logistics industry to receive feedback. The response which they received from the leaders of supply and chain was very encouraging, almost all of them told the co-founders to go for it. Five of them became their early investors and Ezyhaul raised $800,000 from angel investors which helped them in expanding the business operations in Malaysia for a year and a half.
Ezyhaul – Name, Tagline and Logo
The idea behind Ezyhaul’s name is that if you break it into two words: Ezy means making things Easy and Haul is the short form of Haulage which means the commercial transport of goods. So ideally it perfectly justified the company’s mission to create a very easy platform for trucking industries; hence the name Ezyhaul.
Ezyhaul Logo
The company’s tagline is “Transportation made Ezy“. It describes the motto of the company.
Ezyhaul – Startup Launch
Ezyhaul began as a bootstrapped company.
“It’s very tough for somebody to give you money for an idea. So you need to have that conviction to use your own money to at least get the idea off the ground. If you’re a first time entrepreneur, you need to show them (Investors) something convincing. So I think bootstrapping with your own money is quite important. It also signals to the investor that you’re serious about your business since you’ve put in your own money and that you are prepared to put in the grind.” –Mudasar Mohamed, Co-Founder and Chief Operating Officer
All three founders did not draw any salary in the first year of starting up. To launch in a smaller market to assess its product, Ezyhaul began operations in Malaysia first. They soon began getting offers and had a list of 10 good clients within months.
Backed by the success, Ezyhaul raised a seed fund of $800,000 from Angel investors. From then on, there was no stopping them. After strategic investors pumped in another $25 million, they began expansion into Thailand, followed by India.
Ezyhaul – Business Model and Revenue Model
The clients make online bookings for domestic and cross-border transportation services. The platform includes integrated dynamic route optimization technology that builds the most efficient delivery routes, optimizes vehicle utilization, and minimizes total transportation costs. The profit margin differs from plain regions to high dimensions and it generally lands between 5-20%.
Given that Ezyhaul is into the B2B industry, most of the sales happen through direct sales channels while a small percentage happens through digital marketing that uses B2B marketing strategies. They have a team of experts who handles clients, tie-ups, and marketing.
The startup believes and has been focusing on digitization, so the team has used a combination of both digital marketing and direct sales method to reach out to customers. The factors which worked for them are referrals by existing customers which in turn was an outcome of delighting them with exceptional customer service.
Ezyhaul – Startup Challenges
The biggest challenge in the logistics industry is enabling the drivers to use the application and increasing the adoption of smartphones amongst the driver community. Smartphone adoption is a challenge in South East Asia and India. Ezyhaul mitigated that challenge and partnered with multiple telecoms that help in getting drivers discounts on handsets and data.
Ezyhaul – Competitors
Ezyhaul’s proprietary technology has been a core differentiator especially route optimization. They have been able to reduce the client’s transport spend nearly by 15% through the Ezyhaul platform. The algorithms that Ezyhaul has created takes care of the company’s pricing aspect as well as route and lane.
The top 10 competitors in Ezyhaul’s competitive set are GoGoVan, Lalamove, Ninja Van, Deliveree, Dada, Logivan, Xdel Singapore, Cargobase, GoJavas and Whitebox.
Ezyhaul – Funding and Investors
Ezyhaul has raised a total of $21.84 million in funding to date.
For any startup it is a massive vote of confidence when an existing investor does a follow up round and more so when the investment triple their outlay. The first round of funding was $800,000 from angel investors and this helped the company in expanding the business in Malaysia for a year and a half. The company has raised $5 million in Series A round in 2018 and raised $16 million in Series B from the same strategic investor in 2019
Ezyhaul’s Funding Details
Date
Stage
Amount
Investor
2016
Seed Round
$840K
Undisclosed
2018
Series A
$5 million
Undisclosed
2019
Series B
$16 million
Undisclosed
Ezyhaul – Growth
Ezyhaul has grown more than 900% and has struck partnerships from leading companies that allowed the propagation of the clients. They have been able to draw out references from a lot of their existing clients.
With more than 30,000 trucks serving the market of Southeast Asia, the team now has set its sights on India, which is a huge market, and where despite the many innovations, the transportation industry remains fragmented but Ezyhaul, which is operational in Malaysia, Singapore, and Thailand believes there’s room for more.
Ezyhaul – Awards and Recognition
Ezyhaul’s biggest achievement is being the first transport startup in the transport industry, which is multinational and is progressing and expanding year after year. Recently Ezyhaul backed the Accenture-Freight & Logistics ASEAN Innovator Award!
Ezyhaul – Future Plans
Ezyhaul is one of the few startups that serve in multiple countries. Most startups prefer to operate in a single set-up. However, Ezyhaul operates in Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, and India.
In the next two years, Ezyhaul will be penetrating in further industry markets. In the next five years, the team is expecting an increase in digitization in the transport space with faster adoption of new-age technologies and they believe that Ezyhaul will be a resource for this change.
FAQs
Who is Ezyhaul founder?
Mudasar Mohamed, Raymond Gillon, and Nicky Lum are the founders of Ezyhaul.
What is Ezyhaul?
Ezyhaul is a leading digital road freight platform in South Asia. Using its online platform, clients can make bookings with Ezyhaul for B2B domestic short-haul, long-haul, and cross-border shipments.
How much funding has Ezyhaul raised?
Ezyhaul has raised a total of $21.84 million in funding to date.
Who are the competitors of Ezyhaul?
Ezyhaul’s competitors – GoGoVan, Lalamove, Ninja Van, Deliveree, Dada, Logivan, Xdel Singapore, Cargobase, GoJavas and Whitebox.
The article is contributed by Nilesh Ghule, Co-founder and CEO, TruckBhejo.
Over the last two years, primarily because of the pandemic, and deeper internet and mobile phone penetration there is an unprecedented surge in online shopping. As a result, the e-commerce market has boomed and is estimated to reach USD 200 bn by 2026, according to Inc42’s e-commerce report. It has also led to the growing popularity of the Direct to Consumer (D2C) business model.
Alongside this boom, a Mordor Intelligence report underlines that driven by the growth of manufacturing, FMCG, retail, and e-commerce, the Indian Third-Party Logistics (3PL) market is expected to register a CAGR of over 11.5% during the forecast period of 2020-2025.
This growing synergy between D2C brands and logistics providers is driven by the need for greater efficiency and speed with customers setting delivery deadlines that are shrinking every day, from 24 hours to 10 minutes. ‘Express Deliveries’ is the buzzword today, and with this in mind, Indian businesses, like their western counterparts, are slowly making the transition from horizontal to vertical integration.
Bottom-line over top-line
Earlier, the business strategy favoured the takeover of rival companies and the development of in-house facilities to expand in size and assert market dominance. Today, with the bottom line taking precedence over the top-line, and efficiency outscoring effectiveness, D2C brands are seeking third-party services to combat competition.
D2C as a business model relies on three important aspects namely core product, online selling experience, and offline fulfilment experience. It is in the third, the last-mile delivery stage, that tech-based logistics platforms are coming into play with the guarantee of delivering products in the most time and cost-effective manner through increased digitization and automation.
Tech-ing the shortcut
Just like robotics and sensors have streamlined operations in the warehouse, drones and driverless EVs could well revolutionize e-commerce supply chains in the future. For now, AI-driven tools like the Internet of Things (IoT), advanced algorithms, blockchain, and data analytics can be incorporated into operations to optimize routes, circumvent delays, and reduce empty miles.
TruckBhejo has, in just five years since its inception, shipped over 2 million tons, completing one million deliveries by leveraging technology. It even managed to satisfactorily complete a monthly order of 50,000+ products for an e-commerce major to meet increased demand during the festive season.
Tracking deliveries
With customers raising the bar every day, the buck doesn’t stop at speed. It demands reliability and transparency too. The customer expects personalized communication via text and email to stay connected with the product from the time it leaves the warehouse till it reaches their doorstep.
Here again, tech-based 3PL players can provide great customer satisfaction through real-time updates that help them track the product right down the supply chain. Even if there’s a logjam, they are as much in the know as the supplier and transporter. This kind of visibility helps build brand loyalty which is imperative in a crowded market.
The road logistics market in India is expected to reach USD 330 billion by 2025, according to the ‘Inter-city Logistics Market Study’ by RedSeer. However, to ensure a seamless run, logistics tech aggregators need to come up with customized solutions to cater to clients who come in all shapes and sizes, demanding local, pan-India, and even global reach.
One way to do this is through smart packaging. Standardization in the size of the items and choice of packing material, with thermocol sheets and bubble wrap replacing bulky plywood or fragile glass cases, can bring down the burden of warehouse and transportation costs and scale up the volume of orders.
Plan for the future
The Indian logistics sector has one of the highest transportation costs at 14% Gross Domestic Product (GDP). The good news is that the government has come to its aid with the PM Gati Shakti—National Master Plan launched by PM Narendra Modi. Its aim is to break departmental silos and bring in more holistic and integrated planning and execution of projects with a view to addressing issues of multi-modal and last-mile connectivity. With better infrastructure, digitization, and pan-India mobile and internet connectivity, 3PL players can speed up their operations, helping D2C brands to thrive and grow.
Conclusion
While there is a steady growth in D2C business model adoption and e-commerce business, it is imperative for the companies to team up with the logistics players to ensure success and sustainable growth. A good logistics partner with tech-enabled solutions like TruckBhejo can provide unparalleled customer experience through speedy deliveries, timely status updates, and accommodating last-minute requests. Tech-led startups are adding immense value to the D2C brands by putting the technology into the use case and making various smart tools available to the customers. This “best match on the expressway” is ultimately ensuring delivery of not just the goods, but also of the customer experience and satisfaction.
Company Profile is an initiative by StartupTalky to publish verified information on different startups and organizations.
Only when we thought that logistics can no longer get more interesting and is at the top of its game, Rivigo was set up in 2014 by former Mckinsey consultants Deepak Garg and Gazal Kalra to change the game. With the sole idea of creating a relay truck model, where no vehicle driver would drive for more than four-to-five hours at a stretch and also would return home the same day, Rivigo was born.
In September 2019, Rivigo entered Unicorn club with a valuation of $1.05 billion.
Interesting isn’t it? This is why StartupTalky has brought this Rivigo success story for you to know all about Rivigo app, its Founders, Valuation, Funding and Investors, Growth, Challenges, Competitors, and more.
With the launch of its relay model of trucking and utilization of cutting edge technology, Rivigo is transforming the nation’s logistics sector. This innovative method not only improves travel routes but also puts truck drivers’ welfare first, guaranteeing that they may sleep soundly in their own beds every night instead of having to endure the long, 20–30 day trips that were previously the norm.
A truck relay! Sounds interesting right? Let’s seehow this platform caters to its target audience.
The mobile application of Rivigo is built for the drivers to make their life simpler by providing a one-stop solution for all their needs. This application is more image-based than text and is available in 11 different languages. Also, it tracks everything a driver needs to do, from notification of duties to surveys.
The pilot gets the duty alert on the phone and he reaches the pit stop. There, he scans his unique QR code which is a testament that he has reached the required destination. This way the incoming pilot gets the alert on his application to the subsequent pilot that he needs to hand over.
The interesting part is that there is a technological handshake through QR codes on the two pilots’ apps. The pilot who is taking over has a checklist regarding the truck’s condition and shipments, which he needs to verify through the Rivigo application. All this takes less than five minutes following which the pilot can drive off to his next pit stop.
This whole magnanimous process of routing and the assigning of pilots is taken care of by Rivigo algorithms. Rivigo’s trucks are all IoT-enabled with the feature that tracks the vehicle in real-time. This ensures reliability and avoids breakdowns.
This smart and real-time monitoring took off to another level when Rivigo launched refrigerated trucks for the fresh eatables producing sector of the economy. Here, the clients can check the thermostat and regulate it through the mobile application.
Rivigo Pilot Story
Rivigo – Industry
According to a recent survey of the economy, the Indian road freight market is estimated to be worth around $150 billion. However, Rivigo believes that they are operating in a monopoly market with no other company that is in direct competition with the company. The model of Rivigo is one of a kind in a large enough market with room for multiple players and there are multiple different problems to solve in the sector.
Rivigo – Founders and Team
Deepak Garg and Gazal Kalra were the Founders of Rivigo. Gazal left the company in 2018 but Deepak is still there, aligned with Rivigo.
Deepak Garg
Deepak Garg – Rivigo Founder
Deepak Garg graduated from IIT Kanpur and then obtained his MBA degree from IIM, Lucknow. Deepak started as a software developer at Geometric Ltd. and by the time he launched Rivigo. Deepak had spent close to a decade at McKinsey & Company as an Associate Partner and was deeply involved in the logistics and automotive sector. After this, Deepak founded Rivigo, where he is serving as the pilot.
Gazal Kalra
Gazal Kalra – Rivigo Founder
Gazal has an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business after completing her Master’s degree in Public Administration from Harvard Kennedy School. Before launching Rivigo, Gazal was a Consultant at the World Bank Group. Interestingly, she was also a parliamentary associate of Lok Sabha for close to two years. Gazal was a Business Analyst at McKinsey & Company and eventually became the Co-founder of Rivigo. Gazal resigned from Rivigo in October 2018 and is currently the Founder & CEO of a company that is in stealth mode, as of May 2022.
The Rivigo employee strength is listed as somewhere between 1000-5000 employees, as far as its Linkedin profile is concerned
Rivigo – Startup Story
All of this started when McKinsey and the National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC) happened to conduct a joint study to identify where are India’s most needed skilled jobs. And to everybody’s surprise Logistics and construction emerged as the top sectors. That’s exactly when Deepak Garg decided to take some time off from work, and flea on a road trip to interact and connect directly with the truck drivers to understand the reasons behind the shortage of drivers.
“It all started with a road trip, listening to the truck drivers and realizing that they have been marginalized and looked at as outcasts, which needed to change,” says the founder of one a kind Truck Relay.
While Deepak was just getting acquainted with the idea of the startup, he met with the future co-founder of Rivigo, Ghazal Kalra over coffee. That time, she had just gotten back from the US after finishing her joint program and was looking to put together a startup. Deepak and Gazal had not worked together yet, but Deepak knew Gazal through her husband who happened to be his colleague at McKinsey. To get a primary idea of what was happening on-ground, Gazal decided to hit the road herself. She was looking to understand the underlying reason behind Indians not taking up paid jobs like truck drivers. And the most surprising fact was this was the condition despite the massive unemployment ratios in the country.
Reminiscing, she said, “At a village in Rajasthan some three-four unemployed men were sitting around playing cards. I asked them, “Why don’t you consider the option of becoming a truck driver?” They took great offense to the question. One guy said no one would marry him if he took that option, while another said he had studied till Class 8, not for such a job.”
Analyzing this stigma on the mindsets of the people, this duo realized that there were several reasons why the “truck driving” profession has traditionally been frowned upon. Among these reasons, the biggest one was owing to drivers staying on the road for a stretch of days. So this meant that truck drivers go home three-four times a year. Also, this profession was perceived to be a high-risk job mainly because of factors like poor living conditions, vulnerability to contracting HIV, drug, and alcohol addiction, and pressure from truck owners to drive more often and faster. Somehow both these co-founders knew that if they work out an arrangement where they could send the driver home the very same day, the whole scenario could be reversed.
Rivigo – Logo and Tagline
Rivigo’s Tagline is ‘Making Logistics Human’
Rivigo Logo
Rivigo – Business Model and Revenue Model
Rivigo to date has always declined to reveal the pricing modules that it charges to its app users. Rivigo’s net worth is unknown but the company made it a point by saying that its clients see a saving of 12% to 20% in overall logistics costs when they use the Rivigo application. However, Rivigo has not been able to pass on the entire cost-benefit to clients.
Rivigo – Startup Challenges
Theoretically, this system sounds simple enough. But in reality, this process is very cumbersome. Rivigo has created a network of over 70 pit stops across the country, which translates to a driving distance of around 250 km or around five hours for a driver between pit stops. However, to make this as effortless as imagined, the team has to ensure full control and monitoring of the mechanism.
This is not it. The pilot who is handing over the truck again needs to board another truck that is coming in the opposite direction. So, essentially the trip planning and routing are required to be done optimally so that trucks are traveling in both directions at about a similar time.
Also, one of the major challenges faced by Rivigo is finding the right set of drivers and, therefore, requires huge investments to build an effective HR process. Both the co-founders have tried to create a hiring process for drivers that is as stringent as the management hires involving checks for behavior, attitude, and technical skills. All drivers go through strict and regulated training programs at Rivigo.
In September 2019, Rivigo entered the Unicorn club of Indian startups with a valuation of $1.05 billion. Rivigo has raised a total of $268.7 mn in funding to date via 11 funding rounds. The valuation of Rivigo is currently over $1 bn. Rivigo now aims to raise between $50-$100 mn in a Pre-IPO round before conducting an IPO in the next 18-24 months, as of May 2022.
Rivigo Funding Details are as follows:
Date
Amount
Series
Investors
December 1, 2015
–
Debt Financing
Trifecta Capital
December 17, 2015
$30 Million
Series B
Elevation Capital
October 6, 2016
$75 Million
Series C
Warburg Pincus
March 8, 2017
$12.84 Million
Debt Financing
–
January 12, 2018
$41.11 Million
Series D
Elevation Capital
July 10, 2019
$65 Million
Series E
SAIF Partners, Warburg Pincus
September 25, 2019
$4.97 Million
KB Global Platform Fund
December 2019
$20 Million
Series F
SAIF Partners, Spring Canter Investment Ltd.
January 6, 2020
$3.46 Million
Debt
Trifecta Capital
January 7, 2020
$3.21 Million
Series G
Elevation Capital (Formerly SAIF Partners
November 2, 2020
$10 Million
Series G
Elevation Capital
Rivigo – ESOPs
Rivigo adopted a new stock option compensation plan for its employees on May 16, 2022. This has been done under Rivigo Stock Option Plan 2022, for which the Rivigo board has already passed a resolution. This new plan of Rivigo will have 22,730 options each convertible into one equity share and is estimated to be valued at around $15 mn.
Hailed as the fastest-growing surface transport services company in India, Rivigo has seen many ups since its establishment in 2014. Some of the major growth highlights of Rivigo are:
Owns a fleet of 5,000+ high-tech trucks
Reached over 4000 cities
Driven over 1 billion kilometers
More than half a mile trips are confirmed
Covers over 29,000 pin codes across the country
Boasts of having more than 200,000 fleet owners
Curated an undisturbed network of over 70 pit stops and 200 branches.
Recently launched National Freight Index (NFI) to provide live freight rates for different lanes and vehicles across the country.
Rivigo’s revenue rose to INR 1,028 crore in FY19. It had a loss of INR 600 crore for the fiscal year 2019, compared to a loss of INR 270 crore in 2018. The revenue of the Deepak Garg-headed company has increased by 5% in FY20, rising to INR 1,080 crore.
The expenditure of Rivigo also witnessed an increase of 5%, which was previously recorded at INR 1,532 cr in FY19 and became INR 1,622 cr in FY20. This made the losses of Rivigo increase by 6%. Rivigo’s losses were recorded at INR 511 crore (FY19) and surged to become INR 541 crore during FY20.
Rivigo Financials FY18-FY20
Rivigo – Competitors
Although Rivigo believes they do not have any direct competition in the industry with their relay logistics, in recent years we could see truck marketplaces such as Blackbuck, Lobb, and Trukky entering the market. Not just that, there are ventures likeDelhivery and Ecom Express, operating in the same segment, who offers a holistic combination of warehousing, line haul, and last-mile delivery services. Some of the top competitors of Rivigo include:
Blackbuck
Lobb
Trukky
Delhivery
Ecom Express
Rivigo – Future Plans
Gazal said: “Rivigo is only getting started: Our philosophy from day one has been that this is a large sector to solve for. We want to build Rivigo into an institution that will last beyond our lifetime. Our aspiration keeps growing every year. But the main aspiration is quite simple – make India number one in logistics in the world.” Rivigo is currently planning to launch an IPO within the next 18-24 months after seeing a Pre-IPO round.
FAQs
What is Rivigo?
Rivigo is a technology-enabled logistics platform provider that offers transport services. The company’s full-stack logistics offering includes relay-led trucking and freight marketplace.
Who are Rivigo Founders?
Deepak Garg and Gazal Kalra are the Founders of Rivigo.
Who are the Top Competitors of Rivigo?
Rivigo faces competition from:
Blackbuck
Lobb
Trukky
Delhivery
Ecom Express
What is Rivigo valuation?
Rivigo has a valuation of over $1 bn.
How can you book a Rivigo truck?
A Rivigo truck can be booked by simply going to their website
E-Commerce is growing with immense speed and in order to keep up with the fulfilment of customers, requires logistics services. The E-commerce sector is worth USD 64 billion and is expanding at an annual 20% rate.
Logistics partners play a very significant role in completing the whole E-commerce shopping procedure. Because logistics partners act as the actual driver in delivering the product to the consumer and also, it works as the definitive factor in the uplifting of D2C companies. They run the seamless process for purchasing in E-commerce companies.
As the digital market is growing, numerous companies are providing logistics services to D2C E-commerce companies. Today, there are dozens of logistics services options and all competing to be the best.
The logistics act as the third party in the D2C companies but the difference is, that they just deliver the product bought from the D2C E-Commerce website, to the customers. Partnership with logistics services offers great facilities such as faster delivery, 2-day shipping and covering all the other aspects. That’s why, in this article, we have discussed the top reliable companies for your D2C brand. Let’s get started!
For E-commerce retailers, it often becomes quite difficult to manage all the requirements of the logistics service provider. That’s why Shiprocket offers an integrated solution so that your all requirements get fulfilled.
Shiprocket is a very promising Indian fulfilment company that offers tons of courier partners together to make logistics services convenient for online retailers. The company has over 17 Courier partners, as of today.
Shiprocket provides remarkable logistics services at a very reasonable price, for 500 grams it charges Rs. 22. It delivers to more than 26,000 pin codes in over 220 countries across the world.
2. XPO Logistics
XPOLogistics Logo
XPO Logistics is known as the second-largest contract logistics provider in the world. It facilitates all logistics services including outbound and inbound. Furthermore, XPO Logistics serves a huge range of industries with multiple modal shipment forwarding outcomes and an integrated technical outlet. XPO Logistics entirely depends on technology.
It utilises artificial intelligence and machinery to improve its services. It uses robots and a computerized sortation system in enhancing delivery speeds and warehouse productivity.
3. Delhivery
Delhivery Logo
The leading Indian logistics and supply chain management firm, Delhivery, established in 2011 is known for offering a great range of top-notch infrastructure, logistics and remarkable technological systems. Delhivery serves around 2,500 countries across the world.
Delhivery provides logistics services such as same-day delivery, on request delivery, return services, express distribution, COD and others. It has over 75 fulfilment centres along with 24 computerized sortation centres, 1400+ delivery vehicles, 8000+ partner centres and 4000+ team partners.
4. C.H. Robinson
C.H. Robinson Logo
The company with the service of multimodal transportation, C.H. Robinson, also works as a third-party logistics provider. C.H. Robinson manages over 18 million shipments and USD 20 billion in freight per year.
The company offers a great range of services that includes LTL freight choices, truckload, intermodal shipment, and trade obedience services. Moreover, it offers consultancy services that help its partners in optimizing the supply chain.
5. Blue Dart
Blue Dart Logo
Blue Dart is known as the most prestigious logistics firm in India. Blue Dart offers absolutely safe and reliable integrated logistics services for D2C E-commerce companies.
Blue Dart serves over 35,000 locations across India and offers a great range of services including supply chain solutions, air express, custom clarity and shipment forwarding.
Blue Dart prefers the most remarkable technology to enhance its supply chain management for E-commerce companies. It makes the delivery very quick and convenient to receive by the customers.
6. Ecom Express
EcomExpress Logo
Ecom Express is a logistics and distribution company that hasn’t been in the market for very long. It encompasses the expectations of industries and has gained remarkably good market share.
Ecom Express is widely famous across India with distribution branches of over 2500 in more than 2400 cities as well as towns. It delivers at more than 25,000 Indian pin codes.
Ecom Express offers a bunch of additional features such as an affectionate GPS enabled fleet, weight dimensions, first mile pickups, last-mile delivery and many others.
7. DHL
DHL Logo
DHL is a distinguished global logistics company that serves more than 220 countries and territories across the world. DHL offers tons of logistics requirements such as transportation, integration, warehousing, and chain management.
DHL works best for businesses located outside the United States. It provides simple and affordable shipping for E-commerce companies. Moreover, it also offers to consult for the companies as well as other customized services to help the E-commerce companies to grow extensively in the international market.
Conclusion
With the growing digital businesses, especially in India, therefore E-Commerce companies require specialized partnerships with the logistics service provider. Today, the market has dozens of companies and firms that provide streamlined delivery services to consumers. As there are numerous options, one gets to choose the right and affordable logistics services partner for their E-Commerce platform and facilitates the operations as well as order management.
FAQs
What are some of the best logistic services for D2C?
DHL, Blue Dart, Delhivery, and C. H. Robinson are some of the best logistic services.
How does the D2C supply chain work?
D2C companies are companies that do not have middlemen in between they ship the product directly to the consumers.
Company Profile is an initiative by StartupTalky to publish verified information on different startups and organizations. The content in this post has been approved bySmartr Logistics.
The size of the Indian logistics market is estimated to grow by 380-400Bn+ by 2025. With the upsurge of technological advancements, logistics startups are also growing their business manifold. As the market is growing, from logistics to e-commerce, the competition has become tough to deliver the customers expectations. Statistics from various sources show that over 60% of customers expect low cost yet fastest delivery.
Fastest delivery has become the logistics trends these days. Smartr Logistics is a mumbai based startup that provides express inter-state delivery.
Read to know about Smartr Logistics, founder, startup story, services offered, and more.
Smartr Logistics (a trademark of Smart Express Pvt. Ltd.) is an express logistics startup that provides a one-stop solution for all logistical requirements. The company aims to provide best-in-class logistical services customized to the needs of the customers. The company wants to break the prevalent myth in the logistics industry that “Quality service comes at a high price”.
Promoted by Mr. Yogesh Dhingra, ex-CFO, COO & CSO of Blue Dart, Smartr Logistics was established by passionate business veterans with a combined experience of over 200 years in the logistics industry. Considering their expertise in the industry, the Smartr Logistics team believes that the start-up has the capacity to reimagine the Indian logistics industry thriving on contemporary technology providing unique solutions in the post-pandemic era.
Smartr Logistics is one of the few players that secured a seed fund of INR 100 crores from the get-go and is determined to establish itself as an industry leader in the coming years.
Smartr Logistics – Industry
Currently, the Indian logistics sector is valued at USD 250-300 billion. The industry is estimated to grow anywhere between 12-15% CAGR to reach USD 380-400Bn+ by 2025.
Smartr logistics aims to be a leading state-of-the-art Indian logistics enterprise venturing into the Air and Surface logistics as well as 3PL, warehousing and fulfilment centres. They are confident that their services will win the trust of customers and partners alike reaching new milestones along the way.
Smartr Logistics – Founders and Team
Yogesh Dhingra is the founder of Smartr Logistics and Arun Nangpal, M.D. Bassapa, Nikhil Kumar Saxena, Utkarsh Sharma are the co-founders.
Yogesh Dhingra acquainted a few talented and curious individuals in his career. They have worked together to grow their previous organizations together. They have started Smartr Logistics with a common goal in mind – quality services at the right price.
With the support of the co-founders Smartr Logistics was smoothly set up.
Smartr Logistics Team
Arun Nangpal, the Chief Human Resource Officer and Chief Customer Experience Officer brings her experience of over 30 years of expertise to the Smartr Logistics team. She is a recipient of several awards like Best Customer Feedback Strategy of the Year’ (2013), by Franchise India, Best Customer Service Professional of the Year’ by National Quality Excellence Awards 2012 among a few. Such rich and well-rounded professional experiences make Arun a formidable force to reckon with.
M.D. Bassapa, the Chief Financial Officer, Head of Procurement & Real Estate is certainly the dynamic force that gives the team a driving spirit. He is a valuable industry veteran with over three decades of experience. At Smartr Logistics he will lead the development and implementation of various financial and business systems and processes.
Nikhil Saxena, the Chief Operating Officer and Head of Security, is an esteemed industry veteran with 35 years of experience. He has been a mentor, a leader, and a visionary. At Smartr Logistics, his incredible business insight and expertise in the first mile, mid mile, and last mile of the operations gives their products and services a competitive edge.
Utkarsh Sharma, Dy. Chief Revenue Officer (North) is an industry elite with 29 years of experience Over the years, he has built his teams with discernment and precision. An integral part of the Smartr Logistics team, his preoccupation with sales management & customer-centricity has resulted in significant revenue growth and sales.
In just four months of commencing operations, the company has onboarded 600+ employees and plans to expand more.
They are committed to keeping their employees happy and wanting to contribute to their journey. At Smartr Logistics, they offered ESOPs not just to the top management, but to the first cohort of employees (over 100 employees) who were hired. They want to give talented individuals a chance to create their wealth and grow along with the company. They won’t leave anyone behind.
Smartr Logistics – The Idea and Startup Story
Yogesh Dhingra entered the logistics industry by joining Blue Dart at a young age. He gained immense experience and knowledge while supporting the founders by helping them grow the company to a market-leading position that it is today. It was a gratifying experience to bring together two household names – DHL and Blue Dart, together and strengthen the position of Blue Dart Aviation in the logistics industry.
He was involved in a much broader spectrum of the logistics & warehousing business; whether it be operations, service quality, security, IT, finance, strategy, or investor relations, He contributed to every segment that needed attention and expertise.
A hands-on experience while managing the ups & downs as a CFO at some of the world’s iconic logistics brands, cemented my vision of doing things more effectively. That’s when he knew he could do more, offer quality services and provide meaningful employment and wealth creation opportunities to the community in my own way.
Years of working in the logistics industry allowed me to have a broader view of what a new age customer would want. He wanted to bridge the gap between customer needs and quality services. With like-minded colleagues and business leaders, he started Smartr Logistics to address those needs and provide unique solutions to real problems.
The team behind Smart Express consists of a set of passionate industry veterans with expertise and valuable insight that drives their business smoothly. Their foundation is based on strong business capability and foresight.
Smartr Logistics – Name, Tagline, and Logo
Smartr Logistics Logo
Echoing the brand name – “Smartr Logistics”, the logo reflects a modern design inspired by the company’s mission to emerge as a tech-enabled multi-modal logistics network.
The logo is made of elements depicting technology & hardware to emphasize the importance of contemporary and new-age tech across all aspects of their company. The visual identity also symbolizes the connection outlining the chain of trust and reliability in the process.
Their taglines showcase the unique features of the product range.
“Never Lose track”, emphasize real-time end-to-end tracking of shipment for customers and “Choose Smartr, Move Smarter”, to simply appeal to their potential customers and stakeholders. They are paving the path for next-gen high-quality logistical services.
Smartr Logistics – Services
Smartr Logistics launched its first set of offerings – the Air Express service called Aerex.
Aerex Prime, Aerex Kargo and Aerex eComm and Intracity are the services a customer can choose from depending on their requirements. These services are designed to cater to multiple requirements ranging from delivering simple items such as gifts or documents to heavy and valuable cargo. They have also started a premium same-day interstate delivery service for select customers.
The unique features and USPs of these services differentiate Smartr Logistics from competitors. Apart from customization, speed, and technology; they consider customer care, transparent and real-time tracking, multiple delivery destinations, digital payment methods as their number one priority. To be on top of the game, they have a 24×7 customer support team available on call.
They believe in transparency and want customers and stakeholders to have full faith in them. Their pricing structure is simple and transparent, and customers pay only for the services used.
In just a few months, Smartr Logistics has expanded its operations to over 45 cities, reaching customers across India. Their goal is to create a strong network to help their customers and enable ease of doing business for India’s big and small businesses.
Additionally, the start-up has a strategic roadmap to launch an array of services including International Express/Freight, Surface Express, LTL/FTL and supply chain solutions (3PL) to support warehousing for B2B and fulfilment centres for B2C e-commerce.
They launched Smartr Logistics with over 65 service centres in 34 cities across India. Needless to say, the first three months were dedicated to intense research & development. We went all out hiring the right talent, setting up offices, selecting their locations, mapping their network throughout the country – all in the middle of a global pandemic.
They also had numerous brainstorming sessions to create and come up with “Smartr Logistics” creating a brand strategy that aligned with their common vision. Although we did not start in a garage or a backyard, the collective expertise of all the team members and founders involved, led to a stable and impactful unveiling of Smartr Logistics. They are everywhere since the inception of the company.
While they are not even a year old – Smartr Logistics has been addressing the gap between customer expectations and the services provided. They are already formulating new products, parallelly understanding the dynamics and requirements of the new – post-pandemic world.
Their services promise to close the gap as much as possible. Speedy delivery is their priority. They have already achieved same-day delivery for a route that would take a day at least for an average logistics provider.
They thrive on delivering excellent services in a transparent manner.
Smartr Logistics – Challenges Faced
Smartr Logistics was established to solve contemporary logistics challenges. The pandemic and the restrictions that came along with it threw in many curve balls and challenges, specifically for the logistics industry. As a new-age company, they have leveraged the opportunity to be tech-enabled and digitally advanced. Dynamics have changed and a new era has emerged, hence, we are on top of their game to deliver high-quality services, every time.
They launched their operations amid global lockdowns and heavy restrictions. The biggest challenge was hiring new talent across cities. With the connections and referrals of the co-founders, they hired 500 trusted employees in a span of four months.
That’s how they commenced operations and opened offices in 34 cities.
Smartr Logistics – Growth
Currently, their network covers 2000 pin codes in 45 cities with over 75 service centres. Their customer database grew invariably during the second lockdown, and they serviced businesses in various segments from B2B to B2C/ E-comm, BFSI and more.
With improving situations and lesser restrictions, Smartr Logistics continues to grow rapidly at 75 to 100 per cent month-on-month will expand. In the coming months, they will be covering over 6000 pin codes in 150 cities.
Smartr Logistics – Funding
Date
Stage
Amount
Investors
June 2021
Seed
INR 100 Crores
IIFL India Private Equity Fund and Smiti Holding & Trading Company (Jalaj Dani family office)/ Yogesh Dhingra, Founder, MD & CEO, Smart Express
Smartr Logistics – Competitors
They are aware that there are many players, big & small in this industry. Organized players Blue Dart, Delhivery, DTDC, EcommExpress, Xpressbees, Shree Maruti Courier, TrackOn, Professional Couriers. In e-commerce, we have competition from ATS and Ekart. Apart from these, there are a lot of regional and unorganized players in the industry.
Their dynamic technology and simplified digital processes differentiate them from their competitors. They will continuously improve their products and services to deliver the best results, every time.
Their biggest achievement has to be the same-day interstate express delivery. It is a milestone for Smartr Logistics. The accomplishment is a first in India’s express logistics industry, and we are determined to surpass customer expectations in the future as well.
Smartr Logistics – Future Plans
As a new age logistical company, they strive to improve every day in order to fulfil customer, stakeholders, and employee expectations.
For that purpose, they started with pan-India operations and plan to further expand their network and outreach. They are also working towards an international collaboration to commence reliable overseas express delivery.
Additionally, in the next six months, Smartr Logistics will venture into hyperlocal surface logistics that will increase their flexibility and subsequently start with 3PL, warehousing and fulfilment centres.
In a year, Smartr Logistics will be one of India’s leading logistical providers.
FAQs
Who is the founder of Smartr Logistics?
Yogesh Dhingra is the founder of Smartr Logistics and Arun Nangpal, M.D. Bassapa, Nikhil Kumar Saxena, Utkarsh Sharma are the co-founders.
When was Smartr Logistics founded?
Smartr Logistics was founded in 2021.
How many Smartr Logistics service centres are there in India?
There are 65 Smartr Logistics service centres in 34 cities across India.
The Covid19 pandemic turned the entire economy upside-down. The whole world faced its effects. People, their jobs, and businesses everything had to face the pandemic’s consequences.
Since the whole world got shut down, it affected various businesses. One such example here is the logistics firms.
These firms deal in storage, movement, and proper flow of goods. Logistics firms play a crucial role in connecting the companies with the market. Due to travel and other restrictions, this connection got disrupted.
Now, we are in the recovery stage and so are the logistics firms. The logistics with the help of technology can function at a normal pace, but is it a good time to start a logistics business in 2021?.
In simple words, logistics refers to the management of the flow of things between the companies and customers. Logistics companies perform various functions. These include planning and implementation, storage and movement of goods and services.
The movement of resources is not limited anymore. It is now a global process. Every business needs a proper supply chain for its successful functioning. A supply chain may include, storage, transportation, management. It may also include inventory handling, warehousing, security, etc.
Logistics companies play an important role within a supply chain. These companies may perform all or few functions, according to the client’s requirements.
Thus, logistics companies help businesses with these functions. Today, the term ‘logistics’ is synonymous with ‘efficient flow’ in the business sector.
Logistics Business and The Covid19 Pandemic
The covid-19 outbreak began in late 2019 in China. The World Health Organization (WHO) declared the worldwide pandemic in early 2020. At that time, nobody knew what it was and how to deal with it.
Most of us expected it to be a virus that might end soon. But none of us was aware or prepared for its consequences. International borders got closed, travel and transportation got restricted.
Lockdowns across the borders restricted the movement of goods and services. Warehousing, inventory handling also got affected due to social distancing. All such disruptions in the supply chain affected the logistics business.
Problems faced by Logistics Startups During Pandemic
Border Closure:
The foremost and biggest problem was border closure. This made the whole supply chain come to a halt. Transportation could not take place at all. The logistics companies found it difficult to maintain the supply chain.
Workforce Disruption:
A logistics business is not something that one man can run. It requires a complete workforce to perform its functions. Due to lockdowns, the workforce got reduced.
Reduced Demand:
Due to the pandemic, consumers’ disposable income got reduced. This caused a reduction in the demand for various goods and services. Thus, the logistics businesses had to face losses.
Unpredictable Demand:
The demand for various goods was decreasing. But at the same time, the demand for some goods began to increase. These included medicines, masks, sanitisers, disinfectants, medical appliances, and more.
This uncertainty in demand caused unpredictability within the logistics industry. Thus, affecting their regular planning and management procedures.
Unstable Market:
Many sectors in the market faced a downfall during the pandemic. Both demand and supply chain got affected, making the market unstable. For a logistics business, working in an unstable market became a road to losses.
Irregular Profits:
The demand and supply got reduced on the consumer and corporations’ end. This disrupted the cash flow in the logistics industry. The logistics businesses had to face irregular profits.
A Curse for Small Players:
The pandemic had the worst impact on small logistics businesses. These small players did not have appropriate technology, backup, or recovery plans. They could not afford the expenses of tools as per health guidelines. Many had to shut down due to a lack of profits and increasing losses.
How did the Logistics Industry Respond to the Crisis?
The beginning of the pandemic harmed the logistics businesses. But, later on, logistics startups began to recover and bounced back in the market.
In the second half of 2020, logistics startups began to play an important role. They helped to provide the goods to the consumers at their doors. They also ensured safety protocols alongside.
The logistics industry helped in maintaining the flow of essential goods. They ensured a smooth flow of medical supplies across the globe.
E-commerce goods and services, delivery at the doorstep became the need of the hour. All this required efficient logistics. Here the logistics startups played a crucial role. This is how logistics startups began to bounce back in the market.
Is It a Good Time to Start a Logistics Business?
The pandemic made the world shift from offline to online. Every sector is digitizing. So is the logistics industry. The halt in the supply chain made the logistics industry revamp its measures.
The traditional plans and implementations made the companies unable to fulfil consumer demands. Now, the consumers want service reliability despite any hindrances.
This helps your business operations to be efficient, smooth, and transparent at the same time.
Blockchain:
The world is moving at a faster pace. Time is too precious a waste on unnecessary printing and scanning. So, it is important to opt for documentations based on blockchain.
Artificial Intelligence (AI):
Another important thing to include in your logistic business model is AI. This helps to deal with uncertain demands in the supply chain.
Various logistics startups are digitizing the industry and making it a profitable space. Examples- Budbee, Airmee, Cargo One, Sender, AxleHire, etc.
Thus, if you are planning to start or invest in a tech-based logistics business, it is a good time. However, the industry has become extremely competitive with new technologies. So, it is important to do your detailed research. Plan well, build a team, know your technology and only then enter the market.
Conclusion
The logistics industry got affected by the pandemic. But it also learned to fight the crisis with technology. The whole marketplace is digitizing.
The technological era made the logistics industry super competitive. At the same time, technology has made it profitable as well.
New technologies like data analytics, automation, solution platforms, AI, etc. are a must. The logistics companies that understand how to use these technologies for their benefit are sure to win.
FAQs
What is a Logistic Business?
Logistics companies perform various functions. These include planning and implementation, storage and movement of goods and services.
What are the problems faced by the Logistics Business during the Pandemic?
These are the list of problems faced by the Logistics Industry during a pandemic are Border Closure, Reduced Demand, Unstable Market, Irregular Profits, etc.
List some Logistics Companies in India.
Here are a few examples of Logistics Companies in India are Transport Corporation of India Ltd, Mahindra Logistics Ltd, Aegis Logistics Ltd, AllCargo Logistics Ltd, etc.
Ashwini
Apoorva Bajj
