SoftBank Leads $413M Round For Delhivery’s Logistics Tech

India-based logistics startup Delhivery has secured $413 million in new funding, reports in The Times of India said on Monday (March 25), with Japan’s SoftBank leading the round.

The publication said Delhivery is now valued at $1.5 billion, and plans to follow up the investment round with a share sale that could raise about $150 million, according to unnamed sources. The company targets small businesses and eCommerce firms with its parcel delivery service, and previously acquired Aramex, an industry peer in India. The firm is reportedly planning further collaborations with other logistics players in the U.S., China and Middle East, and is readying to step into the freight market to rival companies like Rivigo.

“We will be scaling up our newer warehousing and freight services through large investments in infrastructure and technology, and global partnerships,” said the company’s CEO Sahil Barua in a statement.

Delhivery has, so far, raised a total of $675 million, according to reports.

Investors in India are shifting their focus onto B2B startups, analysts noted, with India Quotient Founding Partner Anand Lunia telling the publication that unicorns are increasingly appearing in the B2B segment. The time it takes for startups to secure unicorn status is also shortening, said Lunia.

India’s logistics sector is a particularly busy space, with firms like 4TiGO launching in the country in 2016 to tackle what it described as a “fragmented” logistics market. In 2017, BlackBuck, another logistics and freight startup, raised $70 million for its technology.

Earlier this year, Amazon revealed plans to expand its presence in India’s logistics sector with a focus on rural areas of the country. The company will address some of the biggest challenges of the market, including consumers’ lack of access to smartphones, credit cards and delivery addresses, which make parcel delivery an often slow and inefficient process. At the same time, the market is lucrative, with The Wall Street Journal noting more than $400 billion in retail sales stemming from rural India in 2018 alone.