India is back at producing unicorns by the day. And joining those ranks is Logistics company XpressBees, which has announced a fresh $300Mn fundraise, turning it into yet another logistics unicorn.
Based out of Pune, XpressBees’ current round included $300 million — $100 million in primary and $200 million in secondary (to give partial exit to Alibaba and full exit to one unspecified Chinese investor) — in a Series F funding from ChrysCapital, Blackstone and TPG.
XpressBees is already a known name in the ecommerce logistics circle, as it works with almost all of India’s major ecommerce players — both full stack and speciality ones. Some of the names include Meesho, Chinese smartphone major Xiaomi, pharma delivery company Netmeds and digital payments giant Paytm among others.
“We are excited to welcome our new partners Blackstone Growth, TPG Growth, and ChrysCapital in our growth journey. With their vast network and operational expertise, we believe that they will further fuel our efforts in pursuing newer opportunities and will help expand our footprint,” said Amitava Saha, fonder and chief executive of Xpressbees, in a statement.
India has seen a surge in last mile logistics companies, which has been more or less proportionate to the rise of ecommerce in the country. Off late though, logistics players have become critical as Amazon and Walmart (owner of Flipkart) look to go deep into India’s rural and semi-urban geography. Players such as Xpressbees, Delhivery and others have rapidly developed networks, enabling even small-time business owners to seamlessly go online and sell products across the country. These companies have now taken over traditional companies such as DHL-backed Bluedart in terms of overall shipment volumes handled.
As of date, XpressBees claims to have over 1Mn square feet of warehouse capacity, spread across its 100+ hubs and 3000+ service centers. The company also operates air cargo and has presence in over 52 cargo airports.
“Xpressbees is playing an important role in India’s booming ecommerce sector, which is still at an early stage and has a long runway of development,” said Mukesh Mehta, Senior Managing Director at Blackstone Private Equity, in a statement.
