E-commerce shipping platform Shiprocket has raised $185 million in a Series E funding round led by Zomato, Temasek and Lightrock India.
Moore Strategic Ventures and 9unicorns came on as new investors in this round, with participation from existing investors InfoEdge Ventures and March Capital.
This transaction marks Shiprocket's third round of funding this year, taking the total funds raised to $280 million.
This year, it is Zomato's fourth investment in Indian startups — Grofers, Curefit, Magicpin and Shiprocket — as it seeks to build a hyperlocal e-commerce ecosystem by investing and partnering with other companies to tap into growth beyond food.
"Shiprocket plugs a big hole in the e-commerce space by offering customers of direct-to-consumer brands a seamless post checkout experience, including delivery,” said Deepinder Goyal, CEO & Co-founder, Zomato.
Founded in 2017, Shiprocket enables shipping for D2C retailers, SMEs and social commerce sellers. Through more than 17 courier partners, it offers shipping solutions across 29,000+ pin codes within India and 220 countries.
The platform supports more than 1 lakh sellers and delivers packets to over 60 million consumers. It claims to lead the market in aggregated shipments for the SME and D2C sellers online, processing gross merchandise value of more than $1 billion annually.
Shiprocket will deploy the freshly infused capital for product expansion, talent acquisition, and product development.
"We are excited about the vast, untapped opportunity that lies in post-purchase technology enablement in the D2C e-commerce space," said Saahil Goel, CEO and Co-founder, Shiprocket.
A portion of the fresh capital raised will be deployed towards the startup's new strategic initiatives - hyperlocal delivery and global expansion.
"We are on track to launch hyperlocal delivery options which will guarantee low turnaround times (TAT) and best in class SLAs, further cementing our position as the preferred shipping and enablement partner," said Goel.
"With the launch of our services in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in November 2021, we have also taken the first step towards expanding our footprint in new geographies," he added, talking about the startup’s plan to take its operations global, starting with the Middle East.
Shiprocket also provides a technology stack to help retailers integrate their shopping websites on Shopify, Magento, WooCommerce, Zoho and others for workflow, inventory and order management.
Going forward, Shiprocket will also look for inorganic expansion opportunities via M&A to further expand its stack.
The startup claims to have turned profitable within two years of starting operations in 2017. Over the last six months, it has doubled its revenue run rate, according the the company statement.
First Published: Dec 10, 2021 10:14 AM IST
