Strengthening D2C Marketplace

A leading logistics aggregator, Shiprocket has raised $41.3 million in a funding round co-led by PayPal Ventures, along with other existing investors like Info Edge Ventures, March Capital, Tribe Capital and Innoven Capital. Shiprocket is a leading e-commerce fulfilment platform that recently launched three new warehouse hubs across Surat, Jaipur, and Guwahati. This has been done to expand its delivery network to both western and eastern India.
 
Affordable Plans: Shiprocket was launched in 2017 by Saahil Goel who is now its Co-Founder and CEO. It essentially aggregates demand from direct-to-consumer (D2C) brands, micro entrepreneurs and local brands and sends them to logistics players like Delhivery, Ecom Express and others.

The tech-enabled logistic platform provides affordable plans to MSMEs so that they can come online and sell anywhere they want.

Along with logistic service, Shiprocket provides many benefits like warehousing, packaging and other related services. The brand has built three new warehouse hubs in order to keep the goods closer to consumer demand.

"Since demand for shorter time deliveries is originating even from tier-2 and tier-3 cities, by being able to store goods closer to the end consumer, we are not only able to drive a much better consumer experience but also drive down the cost which otherwise retailers would have to pay pan-India shipping for," says Goel.

“Shiprocket’s strategic partners like Razorpay and entrepreneurs such as Cred’s Kunal Shah and Zomato’s Deepinder Goyal have also put in capital,” he adds.
 
Hassle-free checkout: Goel has also been awarded by BW Businessworld amongst those young entrepreneurs who have reshaped the way people have been looking at the Indian startup ecosystem.

This first-generation entrepreneur is bringing in a world-class shipping experience to a longer tail of retailers and D2C brands in India. Further, Goel aims to match the same day delivery module of giants like Amazon whose module is combination of three main components: technological pluming and tooling, fulfilment operations and last-mile operations.

When asked how Goel will utilise capital it has recently raised, he said, “Everything that happens post checkout is pretty seamless and well-built for a player like Amazon. Hence, my main focus of utilising the raised amount will be towards expanding our stack well and integrating it for a hassle-free checkout for consumers.

In an interaction with BW Businessworld in June, when he was asked about his vision, he had said, "We started our company nearly a decade ago to make e-commerce simpler for small and medium businesses (SMBs) and direct-to-consumer (D2C) commerce using technology. 

We haven't waivered from that vision statement. As we look out into the future, we expect to create even more value for SMBs by providing every part of the e-commerce stack that they need to enhance the experience both for their merchants as well as for their end-consumers."

We wish Goel and Shiprocket lots of success in the coming times. Because in his company’s success (and several more in the space) rides the expansion and growth of e-commerce business and its ecosystem.
 
Sche Tvisation: It is necessary that the government consider announcing attractive schemes and incentives to invite companies to.