IPO-bound Delhivery, a new-age domestic logistics giant and supply chain firm, raised $125 million from venture capitalist Lee Fixel’s firm Addition on September 24, 2021.
Delhivery is backed a long list of marquee investors such as Softbank, Tiger Global Management, The Carlyle Group, CPPIB, Fidelity and GIC. Fixel has been a long-term backer of Delhivery and has been investing and re-investing since 2015, the company stated. It was valued at around $3 billion post it fundraises of $277 million earlier.
“We have a long-standing relationship with Lee and are delighted to welcome him to our cap table again. This investment reinforces the trust that institutional investors have placed in Delhivery and is a validation of the strength of our business,” said CEO Sahil Barua.
The company is planning to file its draft red herring prospectus for a $1 billion IPO in October. Currently the company covers more than 17,000 pin codes and offers services such as parcel transportation, LTL and FTL freight, reverse logistics, cross-border, B2B and B2C warehousing, end-to-end supply chain services, and technology services.
Preparations ahead of going public
The company said that it has successfully fulfilled over 1 billion shipments since its inception in 2011 and works with 17,000 customers including large and small e-commerce participants, SMEs, and other enterprises and brands.
Earlier there were reports suggesting that Delhivery is in advanced discussions to acquire a controlling stake in Bengaluru-based rival express logistics player Spoton Logistics.
In an interview to dated June 7, 2021, Delhivery co-founder and chief executive Sahil Barua indicated that the firm plans to list within the next 6 to 8 months and raise a primary issue in the range of $400 mn to $500 mn.
“We are going to be more acquisitive than we have been in the past. It is because there is a mismatch on valuation. We are not going to buy anything for $100 million,” added Barua.
Founded in 2011 by Barua, Mohit Tandon, Bhavesh Manglani, Kapil Bharati and Suraj Saharan, Delhivery reported a loss of INR 284 crore during the financial year 2019-2020. It came down from INR 1,781 crore in the financial year 2018-2019. The revenue increased by 74 percent to INR 2,986.4 crore during the financial year 2020.
