Logistics service provider Xpressbees became the eighth startup to enter the coveted unicorn club in 2022 after it raised fresh funding led by private equity funds Blackstone Growth, TPG Growth and ChrysCapital.
The $300 million Series F funding round, which includes a secondary component, also saw participation from existing investors Investcorp and Norwest Venture Partners. With this, the total amount of capital raised by the startup has gone up to $500 million, it said in a press statement.
This fundraising comes a day after home interior and renovation platform Livspace raised $180 million, catapulting it into the unicorn club -- firms with valuation of $1 billion or more.
Other startups that attained over a billion-dollar valuation this year include Mamaearth, Fractal, Darwinbox, Dealshare, Elastic Run and LEAD School.
The logistics startup says it will use the capital to support the business in its next phase of growth, product development, and hiring talent.
As the Covid-19 pandemic brings millions of shoppers online, spurring the demand for home delivery of goods, the company says it has experienced a near 100% growth in revenue on a year-to-year basis.
"While $100 million has come as primary, $200 million is secondary," Amitava Saha, founder and chief executive officer at Xpressbees, tells news website Moneycontrol.
Alibaba, which had pumped $35 million into the new-age supply chain company in 2018, will be making a partial exit, the portal says.
The Pune-based e-commerce logistics firm had last raised $110 million funding in November 2020 led by Gaja Capital Partners, Investcorp, and Norwest Venture Partners.
The vast network of Blackstone Growth, TPG Growth, and ChrysCapital will further fuel "our efforts in pursuing newer opportunities and will help expand our footprint", Saha says in a statement.
Agrees, Mukesh Mehta, senior managing director at Blackstone Private Equity. "We look forward to leveraging Blackstone’s deep expertise and global network in logistics and ecommerce to accelerate Xpressbees’s growth."
Spun out of kids e-talier Firstcry, the startup competes with logistics service providers like Delhivery, Ecom Express, Shiprocket, Pickkr and BlackBuck.
"As the Indian e-commerce market continues to grow, the need for end-to-end supply chain solutions that can meet the needs of diversified customers across industries has never been more pronounced," says Akshay Tanna, partner at TPG Growth.
Founded in 2015, Xpressbees says it is currently present across 3,000 cities, serving over 20,000 pin codes, and delivering over 1.5 million packages per day. It claims to have over 100 hubs across India, over 10 lakh sq. ft. of warehouse capacity, and operations spread across 52 airports in the country.
India may see as many as 45 unicorns in the next 12-18 months as more customers move to digital services offered by new-age companies, nudging investors to bet on the country’s growing league of startups, Fortune India reported last month.
According to the Economic Survey 2021-22, the country has 83 startup unicorns with a total valuation of $277.77 billion as of January 14, 2022. India added a record 44 unicorns in 2021, overtaking the UK to emerge as the third highest country in number of unicorns after the US and China which added 487 and 301 unicorns respectively in 2021, the survey shows.
