Flipkart joins $60m series D round of logistics startup Shadowfax

Indian ecommerce giant Flipkart announced that it’s made a strategic minority investment in logistics platform Shadowfax as part of the latter’s US$60 million series D round.

Existing investors Eight Roads Ventures, Nokia Growth Partners, Qualcomm Ventures, Mirae Asset-Naver Fund, and World Bank-backed IFC also participated in the round.

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According to a TechCrunch report, Walmart-owned Flipkart contributed US$30 million in the round, which boosted Shadowfax’s total funding to US$100 million and valued the company at roughly US$250 million.

Founded in 2015, Shadowfax operates a multimodal logistics platform in more than 75 towns and cities across India. It uses bikes, minivans, trucks, and airlines for its one-stop delivery solutions for a range of categories including food, groceries, and ecommerce products.

Shadowfax currently processes 10 million orders monthly, with more than 100,000 registered partners on its platform to date, according to a statement.

It plans to use the new funds to further develop its platform, make more hires, expand its shipment capacity to 100 million orders a month, and increase its footprint to 1,000 Indian cities.

Flipkart, which has an existing logistics partnership with Shadowfax, plans to continue to leverage Shadowfax’s network for sustainable hyperlocal logistics, as it looks to bring smaller offline stores into online ecommerce.

“We have seen strong synergies with Shadowfax through our existing engagement with them, and their investments in tech-enabled innovations will help us significantly reduce delivery time and provide superior customer experiences across product categories,” said Flipkart CEO Kalyan Krishnamurthy.

Shadowfax is Flipkart’s third investment in a logistics firm. It earlier backed BlackBuck in its series B round and QikPod’s first round of funding.