According to Tech in Asia’s database, the first half of 2016 saw plenty of startups in India getting funded – 528 deals – but for small deal amounts, at a total of US$1.6 billion.
Logistics firm Stellar Value Chain has proved that there’s still money for infrastructure though – on Wednesday, it announced a US$125 million round of investment from private equity investor Warburg Pincus.
Stellar Value Chain doesn’t seem to have a website and there’s no information about the company on Stellar CEO Anshuman Singh’s LinkedIn. Anshuman used to head Indian private conglomerate Future Group’s Future Supply Chain Solutions, which claims to handle logistics through a network of warehouses, logistics parks, and transport hubs and branches.
Stellar Value Chain provides logistics solutions that also include warehouses and fulfillment centers.
“This is a very exciting stage for the $130 billion Indian logistics and warehousing industry, which is rapidly transforming and growing whilst also offering a number of consolidation opportunities,” Anshuman said in a statement released.
It’s the second largest logistics round in India in recent memory. The first was also closed by Warburg Pincus, during a series D round of US$133 million in end-to-end logistics firm Ecom Express last year.
The private equity firm considers itself a “growth investor”. Its other logistics investments in India include Continental Warehousing, Embassy Industrial Parks, and Gangavaram Port. In January of this year, it closed a series C US$100 million round in Chinese logistics firm Yunniao.
Unlike venture capital funding, private equity investors tend to take complete control of a company after putting money into it. Their job is to turn the companies they invest in into profitable, successful businesses. Mark Kachur, CEO of CUNO, explains it well in a Forbes article from a few years ago: “I consider private equity and venture capital as opposites. In private equity, you start with the numbers, and then you try to fit everything into the numbers. In venture capital, you start with people, and then you try to figure out what numbers you can make.”
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Editing by C. Custer and Kylee McIntyre
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