A decade back, childhood friends Saahil Goel and Gautam Kapoor were blown away with an idea. And that was of Amazon creating a tool for facilitating commerce for citizens in the USA, globally. On similar lines, they too started KartRocket, an end-to-end platform for commerce facilitation.
However, within six months, they were joined by Vishesh Khurana, and together, the trio came up with ShipRocket- the highest name in shipping solutions today, and the 20th unicorn of India in 2022.
Beginning
The name ‘ShipRocket’ was zeroed on, with the view to express, that the company made lightning-fast deliveries as compared to other options available back then. They also wanted to make the delivery of goods more efficient and available at a cheaper rate.
For two years the startup was self-funded, after which the co-founders worked with other companies to generate funds. Prominent investors included Nirvana Venture Advisors and Bertelsmann India Investments
In 2020, the company also elevated its Chief Business Officer Akshay Gulati to the position of co-founder.
Becoming a unicorn
Soon, ShipRocket started attracting more and more investment from other investors. Recently, in a series E funding round that was co-led by Zomato, the company raised INR 259 crore from investors like Temasek and LightRock India and entered the unicorn club.
This means that Temasek’s stock would rise to 5.75% and LightRock India will have a 4.79% stake.
Other investors include Huddle Collective, PayPal, Moore Strategic Ventures, and March Capital Partners. The start-up’s current valuation amounts to $1.3 billion.
Achievemnts
According to reports, around 250k sellers are using ShipRockets’ services, empowering 70 million shipments every year. On a daily basis, the company is said to make around 35,000 deliveries.
The Zomato-backed logistics aggregator acquired a major stake in ‘Pickrr’ for $200 million and has also bought ‘Omuni’a tech business of Arvind ltd, in a 200-crore cash-and-stock deal. It also acquired Rocketbox, a B2B logistics aggregator.
ShipRocket sends shipments to more than 220 countries, with over 17 courier partners like DHL, FedEx, BlueDart, Aramex, DotZot, Shadowfax, Xpressbees, Delhivery, and Ecom Express. Today, along with shipping services, the company provides multiple payment options, real-time order tracking, and a post-shipment facility.
In the future, the 106th unicorn overall is planning to connect small-scale regional sellers with buyers online, so that they too get a chance to prosper by delivering goods on a larger scale.
Sources:
https://tealfeed.com/shiprocket-3-friends-made-one-stop-06811
https://entrackr.com/2022/08/exclusive-zomato-backed-shiprocket-turns-unicorn/
https://yourstory.com/2022/01/the-turning-point-how-zomato-backed-shiprocket-fou
https://www.timesnownews.com/business-economy/companies/india-gets-its-20th-unicorn-in-2022-as-shiprockets-valuation-goes-over-1-billion-with-32-million-funding-article-93627580
https://www.indiainfoline.com/article/news-top-story/with-32-million-in-investment-shiprocket-becomes-a-unicorn-122081800323_1.html
