BigFoot Retail Solutions Pvt Ltd, which operates ecommerce focused logistics-tech firm Shiprocket, on Thursday said it has raised $41.3 million (Rs 305 crore) as part of its Series D1 funding round.
The funding was co-led by Paypal's corporate venture capital arm PayPal Ventures, Info Edge Ventures (backed by Temasek Holdings and publicly listed Info Edge), along with existing investor Bertelsmann India Investments, Shiprocket in a statement said.
Existing investors March Capital and Tribe Capital also participated in the funding. Besides, strategic partners such as Razorpay and InnoVen Capital, and prominent entrepreneurs including Cred founder Kunal Shah and Zomato founder Deepinder Goyal also contributed to the funding.
The fresh capital will be used for global expansion starting with the Middle East, core product upgrade, research and development (R&D) and hiring. Part of the funds will also be deployed for adjacent product development to enable retailers to improve the post-order consumer experience.
Delhi-based Shiprocket (formerly KartRocket) was founded by Saahil Goel, Gautam Kapoor and Vishesh Khurana in 2012. It provides a commerce enablement solution which helps offline and online retailers build their omnichannel solution. It has more than 17 courier partners on board and its shipping solutions are available across over 29,000 pin codes within India and 220 countries across the world.
In February last year, Shiprocket raised extended Series C funding round led by Tribe Capital and March Capital.
Prior to that Shiprocket raised $13 million in its Series C round of funding in May 2020.
The fresh funding came just days after VCCircle exclusively reported that Tribe Capital had made its first known investment in India.
With the latest funding, Shiprocket has raised $94.3 million, the company said.
Goel, CEO, and co-founder of Shiprocket said that the company is democratising best-in-class experiences for hundreds of thousands of ecommerce brands that are shipping millions of items per month through its platform today.
He noted that direct to consumer (D2C) commerce forms roughly 15% of the overall ecommerce market in India and this opportunity is projected to grow to 30-35% in the next five years.
Kitty Agarwal, partner, Info Edge Ventures, noted that over 100,000 online sellers in India use Shiprocket today to streamline their post-checkout process, starting from logistics to warehousing to cash on delivery (COD) management.
"On a macro level, we believe the trend of businesses becoming omnichannel and resellers starting their independent businesses is here to stay," Agarwal added.
Marc Donnadieu, director, PayPal Ventures, said that the venture capital firm will support the development of Shiprocket's tools that will continue to shape the dynamic commerce ecosystem in India for years to come.
There has been a steady stream of investments in companies operating in the logistics-tech space in the past few years. Both investment firms and companies have made bets in this sector.
For instance, last month, LocoNav Inc raised $37 million (Rs 274 crore) as part of its Series B funding round; and GoBolt raised $20 million (Rs 148 crore) as part of its Series B funding round led by new investor Paragon Partners and existing investor Aavishkaar.
In May, FarEye raised $100 million (Rs 728.4 crore) as part of its Series E funding round led by Silicon Valley-based venture capital firm TCV and San Francisco-based growth-oriented investment firm Dragoneer Investment Group.
Earlier in January, Ripplr raised $3 million in a Series A funding round from a clutch of investors including Zephyr Peacock India Growth Fund.
Some of the larger venture capital-funded firms in this space include Rivigo, BlackBuck, and Delhivery.
