Logistics upstart Delhivery, is entering the ‘unicorn’ club with a fresh $413 Mn financing round led by Softbank. The round, which also saw participation from Carlyle Group and China’s Fosun, valued the logistics company at $1.5 Billion. It has made the company, the latest entrant in India’s rapidly expanding ‘unicorn’ segment of companies.
The logistics company has issued 158,831 Series-F CCCPS to bulge-bracket PE firm Carlyle Group — an existing investor in the company, at the same premium per share price. Carlyle Group has invested in Delhivery through its entity CA Swift Investments. For Softbank, the Japanese behemoth has invested via its Cayman Islands-registered entity SVF Doorbell. The company has been issued 1.23 million Series F compulsorily convertible cumulative preference shares (CCCPS) each at a premium of 20,063.
Delhivery will use the funds to expand coverage and target businesses apart from its usual e-commerce customers. “We will be scaling our warehousing and freight operations, investing in building large multi-tenant fulfillment centres, integrated with our parcel and freight transportation networks,” Delhivery CEO Sahil Barua told ET.
What’s intriguing, is Delhivery’s proposed expansion into freight transportation. The company is already building a fleet and withe the freshly received cash, will look to expand it further. That would mean tough competition for startups like Rivigo, who are into the freight space. Alternatively, that could also mean possible consolidation in the fragmented Indian logistics space.
In current numbers, Delhivery claims to be processing a massive 500K parcels on a daily basis, with majority of them being for some of India’s largest ecommerce players. The company also claims to have fulfilled over 340 Million orders till date.
