Logistics startup Shadowfax Technologies, backed by Walmart-owned Flipkart, more than doubled its revenue to nearly ₹1,000 crore in the financial year ended March and expects to grow at the same pace this year, a top executive told VCCircle.
“The market is growing at 40% while we are growing at 100%. We have an opportunity to become 2x of what we are in the next 12 months. There is going to be crazy expansion in the existing categories,” Abhishek Bansal, chief executive, Shadowfax, said in an interview.
Founded in 2015 by Bansal and Vaibhav Khandelwal, Shadowfax has two main business categories—its 30-minute delivery involving quick commerce, pharmacy and food delivery and the second category of e-commerce which is less time bound. Within e-commerce, the firm specializes in reverse logistics, helping customers return their goods, said Bansal.
Last year, Shadowfax tweaked its strategy to sharpen its focus on last mile delivery after closing its non-core verticals including cloud kitchens, transportation solutions, and other asset-heavy businesses.
Shadowfax gives delivery agents with access to companies in 700 cities. Last month, the platform had more than 120,000 monthly transacting delivery partners and close to 700,000 verified monthly active users.
Bansal said that the company is looking to achieve break even this financial year that began 1 April.
“We are one of the most frugal companies and (despite our rapid growth) we have raised just $90 million across various rounds so far,” he added.
Shadowfax also aims to raise the next round of funding in FY23, said Bansal without disclosing the size of the fund raised.
“We don’t have a huge requirement of capital but the main reason for funding is for expansion. Still, a lot of our business comes from the top 50 cities of the country and we plan to go deeper into the existing cities and enter 800 new cities as part of our expansion,” he said, adding that international expansion is not on the cards currently.
Shadowfax’s plans to raise fresh capital come amid a growing fear of funding crunch in the startup ecosystem, especially for growth-stage firms.
“I have seen downturns a couple of times. If the company is growing and making money there is no dearth of capital,” said Bansal, adding that existing investors have committed to double down, without elaborating.
Shadowfax raised $60 million in December 2019 as part of its Series D funding round in which Flipkart also participated. Other investors who took part in that funding round included Eight Roads Ventures, US-based investment firm NGP Capital, Qualcomm Ventures and Mirae Asset Naver Fund.
Bansal also said that while Shadowfax is not actively looking at acquisitions, there will be opportunities for acquisitions because of the downturn.
Logistics space has been one of the main attractions for venture capital and private equity investors in the past years. Earlier this month, Delhivery, which scaled up with funding from investors like Nexus Venture Partners and Softbank, listed on the domestic stock exchanges.
