How a new unicorn got its wings

When someone in India buys a pair of sneakers online, they’re likely handed the package by a man in a Delhivery T-shirt.

The startup, which joined the unicorn club earlier this year at a valuation of US$1.6 billion, doesn’t sell a single thing. Instead, it has built and runs a high-tech logistics network and delivery service that spans India.

“One in four parcels or thereabouts goes through us,” says Sandeep Barasia, Delhivery’s chief business officer, referencing the online shopping sector. The startup claims its road crew covers a distance of 500 million kilometers each day, which equates to 700 trips to the moon and back.

A few more stats:

• Covers 2,000 cities across India
• 33 fulfillment warehouses (leased, rather than owned)
• 4,000 trucks in use each day
• 12,000 delivery motorbikes
• 25,000 staffers across offices and on the road

SoftBank vote

Barasia insists that the unicorn status hasn’t changed the startup or its outlook.

“I don’t even think a bottle of champagne was opened,” he tells Tech in Asia. “We don’t care about what our valuation is. I don’t think that’s a goal that we go for or solve for.”

Its most recent funding of US$413 million was led by SoftBank’s US$100 billion Vision Fund, giving the big-spending Japanese firm a 25% stake in the Indian outfit.

Delhivery posted revenue of US$153.3 million and a loss of US$98.7 million in the latest available data to March 2018.

Flipkart, tied closely with Amazon as one of the nation’s top shopping apps, is one of its biggest-name clients.

Launched in 2011, Delhivery has proven to have good timing, coinciding with a boom in India’s ecommerce market that’s grown from US$1.27 billion in spending that year to a projected US$46.05 billion by the end of 2019, according to figures provided by research firm eMarketer to Tech in Asia.

Setting sail

Speeding things up