Swift, the two-year old startup that specializes in internet commerce enabling, has raised funds worth $2.2 million from a pre-Series A financial round led by Kalaari Capital. Existing investors, including Indian Angel Network and FirstCheque also participated, along with other angel investors.
Swift, which was founded in 2019 by Shyam Kalita, Prayas Mittal, and Debanshu Sinha, is involved in simplifying the way in which consumers shop online, by helping internet-based commercial ventures (including small and medium enterprises, omnichannel brands, and direct-to-consumer firms) strengthen their supply channels. Business-to-business and business-to-consumer shipments have been made easier by Swift’s extensive supply and delivery network. And the best part is that the startup does not levy any hidden costs on its clients, offering reliable shipping at reasonable prices. Moreover, all the transactions and processing that go into facilitating such supplies are also made easier, thanks to a completely online interface.
The company says that the newly-obtained funds will be directed towards scaling the engineering efforts, while also simplifying business workflows, especially across payments, checkouts, and fulfillment. Intuitive design, complete with self-serve automations and data driven systems, will also be developed and nurtured to improve efficiencies.
Co-founder Shyam Kalita shed some light on Swift’s ideology, saying, “The internet commerce infrastructure in India has been built to serve large marketplaces making it impossible for smaller brands to compete with them. This is clearly visible in the small proportion of online orders placed via D2C store fronts vis-a-vis marketplaces.” Asserting that all such problems mainly arise from “problems rooted in code and not in business,” He added, “Our checkout product helps brands interact seamlessly with customers by providing a unified one-tap layer for marketing, cart management and payments. Swift’s flagship fulfillment product on the other hand, helps sellers manage, process and deliver better. Put together, our platform can power the growth of India’s internet economy.”
Swift has been trying to ramp up its game in the services it currently offers to D2C brands, small businesses, drop shippers, and omnichannnel brands. It recently came up with “Swift Checkout,” a new product that allows businesses to increase their order volumes dramatically, by reducing cart abandonment. At the same time, its other offering, “Fulfill with Swift,” is trying to become a one-stop for OMS, WMS, Shipping, and even Reconciliation. These tools could come in handy in Swift’s journey towards becoming a market leader in internet-based commerce, especially with the D2C domain expected to see a growth of around 39% CAGR, so as to hit a value of over $100 billion by 2025.
Prayas Mittal, another co-founder at the startup, chipped in about the fundraiser, saying, “Competing with marketplaces like Amazon and Flipkart, without the infrastructure to enable commerce is akin to running a mule in a horses’ race. At Swift we have built a one-stop solution that enables sellers to focus on their core business while our infrastructure manages everything around it – cart conversions, payments, fulfilment and returns reconciliation. There is no doubt that the next decade of eCommerce in India belongs to D2C brands and Swift looks to power that transformation”.
