Ontario Teachers’ fund backs Indian logistics unicorn Xpressbees in $80 million funding
Xpressbees, an Indian logistics firm that works with several e-commerce firms in the country, has raised $80 million in a new funding round led by Ontario Teachers’ TVG fund amid a surge in the country’s online shopping activity.
The Canadian pension fund has acquired stake in the Pune-headquartered startup at about $1.4 billion valuation, same as a Series F tranche earlier this year. With the latest investment round, Xpressbees’ cumulative funding has reached approximately $680 million.
Xpressbees, which also counts Malaysian sovereign wealth fund Khazanah, TPG, Alibaba and Blackstone among backers, works with more than 1,000 clients — including financial and e-commerce services giant Paytm, social commerce startup Meesho, eyewear seller Lenskart, phone maker Xiaomi, and online pharmacy NetMeds — deliver their products across the country. It has presence in over 2,000 cities and towns, and it processes more than 2.5 million orders a day — up from about 600,000 daily orders last year.
Xpressbees started its journey within FirstCry, an e-commerce for baby products, in 2012. But in 2015, it became an independent company with Amitava Saha, co-founder and chief operating officer of FirstCry, moving out of FirstCry to become chief executive of Xpressbees. Supam Maheshwari, who co-founded FirstCry and serves as its chief executive, is the other co-founder of Xpressbees.
Xpressbees competes with a handful of established firms and startups, including publicly listed firm Delhivery and Shadowfax, which is in advanced stages of talks to raise about $60 million in a round led by TPG NewQuest, TechCrunch earlier reported.
