Xpressbees
Founded: 2015
Founders: Amitava Saha and Supam Maheshwari
Financing status: USD 100 million in upcoming investment
After more than a year and a half in the making, Pune-based logistics startup Xpressbees is poised to land USD 100 million worth of investment from China’s tech giant Alibaba.
This investment, which reportedly has been in the works since June 2016, is now in its final stages. The deal marks Alibaba’s sixth major investment in the Indian startup scene and brings the company’s total investment in India to more than USD 1.7 billion. As part of the deal, previous investor like SAIF Partners, IDG Ventures India, NEA, Vertex Ventures, and Valiant Capital may sell part or all of their stakes in Xpressbees.
Alibaba has already made major investment in Indian payment platform Paytm and ecommerce platform Bigbasket. If and when the deal with Xpressbees goes through, it will complete what Alibaba CEO Jack Ma has referred to as the “iron triangle” of modern business: payment platforms, ecommerce portals, and logistics solutions providers. Alibaba has secured an iron triangle in China with Alipay (payment), Tmall & Taobao (ecommerce), and Cainiao (logistics).
Xpressbees boasts an vast, far-reaching network with advanced technology and efficient last-mile management system, making it count among the most trusted brands in Indian ecommerce logistics solutions providers. The platform employs more than 10,000 team members and claims to complete more than 200,000 deliveries each day.
Xpressbees, a spinoff of Indian maternity shopping portal FirstCry, was founded in 2015 by Amitava Saha and Supam Maheshwari. Competitors within the Indian logistic solutions provider area include Ecom Express, Delhivery, and Amazon India.
(Top image from xpressbee.com)
