India's Shiprocket gets $185m Series E

New investors Moore Strategic Ventures and 9unicorns also participated, along with existing backers InfoEdge Ventures and March Capital. They were joined by individuals associated with local organizations like IndiaMART, Lenskart, Huddle Ventures, Mamaearth, Boat Electronics, and Helion Ventures.

The investment marks Shiprocket’s third round of funding this year and brings its total capital raised to $280 million. It follows a $41.3 million round in July co-led by PayPal Ventures, and Bertelsmann India Investment with support from InfoEdge, March, Tribe Capital, Innoven Capital, and Razorpay. Previous investors also include Beenext Capital, Nirvana Ventures, and 500 Startups.

Launched in 2017, Shiprocket positions itself as India’s largest e-commerce shipping and enablement platform. It also claims to be the fastest local company to become profitable within 24 months while also doubling its annual recurring revenue over the last six months.

The company’s core technology offering facilitates powers shipping and fulfillment for small to medium-sized enterprises, direct-to-consumer retailers, and social commerce sellers across categories such as beauty and personal care, apparel, footwear, electronics, and healthcare.

“You have a certain expectation when you're ordering from Amazon and other e-commerce providers. Shiprocket helps millions of people that run businesses out of homes, cars, rickshaws or by the side of the street meet that,” Arjun Sethi, co-founder of Tribe, told AVCJ last year after leading a $13 million round.

The platform – which is compatible with platforms such as Amazon and Shopify – helps realize more than 20,000 shipments a day for 10,000 sellers for rates as low as INR19 ($0.25) per 500 grams domestic and INR1,100 per 500 grams international. There are also adjacent service offerings around business analytics and billing.

Deepinder Goyal, CEO and co-founder of Zomato, described the company as on a “march towards creating game-changing hyperlocal e-commerce infrastructure in the country.” Recent traction includes an expansion into Saudi Arabia, a step in internationalizing the operational footprint.

The Series E will be used for R&D, talent acquisition, and development of new products and services aimed at helping retailers deliver seamless, high-quality, post-order customer experience in line with that of large e-commerce platforms. It will also support further expansion into the Middle East via M&A.

“The next stage of India’s e-commerce growth is driven by the D2C revolution,” said Pankaj Naik, co-head of digital and technology investment banking at Avendus Capital, which advised Shiprocket on the latest transaction.

“For a fragmented D2C base, faster, cheaper and reliable shipping and fulfillment is no longer a luxury, but a necessity. Shiprocket is leading the digital enablement of logistics and post-purchase solutions for India’s heavily fragmented seller base.”

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• Topics
• South Asia
• Consumer
• Support services
• Expansion
• India
• Temasek Holdings
• e-commerce
• Logistics