India’s e-commerce firm Flipkart recently announced a strategic minority investment in Shadowfax, a domestic logistics platform founded in 2015. This is part of a $60-million series D funding that Shadowfax has received from Eight Roads Ventures, Nokia Growth Partners, Qualcomm Ventures, Mirae Asset Naver Fund and World Bank-backed International Finance Corporation (IFC).
Shadowfax currently enables seamless delivery of 10 million monthly shipments across diverse segments ranging from hot food to grocery to fashion, electronics and other e-commerce items. The company has seen a six-fold growth in the last two years.India's e-commerce firm Flipkart has announced a strategic minority investment in Shadowfax, a logistics platform founded in 2015. This is part of a $60-million series D funding that Shadowfax has received from Eight Roads Ventures, Nokia Growth Partners, Qualcomm Ventures, Mirae Asset Naver Fund and World Bank-backed International Finance Corporation.#
The Shadowfax platform has more than one lakh registered partners and its unique tech-enabled crowdsourcing platform helps delivery partners maximize their earnings as they work across categories.
The company will use the funds to enhance the tech capabilities of the platform, recruit talent, increase the number of shipments to 100 million a month and expand its geographical presence to 1,000 Indian cities, according to a Flipkart press release.
Flipkart has an existing partnership with Shadowfax to fulfill logistics requirements across various categories in its e-commerce business.
As Flipkart focuses on building a sustainable hyperlocal ecosystem, it is working towards bringing offline mom-and-pop stores into the fold of e-commerce by enabling them to be a part of this offering.
The company’s hyperlocal approach aims at placing inventory closer to customers, leveraging the existing investments of space and working capital of such small stores to accelerate delivery timelines for consumers.
Fibre2Fashion News Desk (DS)