Teachers’ Venture Growth (TVG), the late-stage venture and growth investment arm of the C$249-billion Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, has pumped $80 million into logistics unicorn Xpressbees, marking its first investment in India.
The competition watchdog in India CCI gave its nod to the transaction proposal last month.
TVG joins a marquee set of investors in the company including Blackstone Growth, TPG Growth, ChrysCapital, Khazanah Nasional Berhard, Alibaba Group, Elevation Capital, Investcorp, Norwest Venture Partners and Gaja Capital which are already on the company’s cap table.
“We believe the logistics sector is at the cusp of technological disruption and this is the right time to expand service offerings to address the growing needs of businesses and consumers,” said Amitava Saha, Founder & CEO at Xpressbees.
Established in 2015, Xpressbees was spun off from e-commerce giant FirstCry. The firm delivers goods across different cities in India and counts multiple e-commerce platforms as its clients. Meanwhile, through its subsidiary NimbusPost, Xpressbees provides a SaaS-based shipping aggregation platform for SME & D2C brands.
The company claims to have over 60,000 clients and ships through 27 local and national courier partners. Going forward, Xpressbees wants to expand its suite of service offerings through selective inorganic acquisitions. It recently acquired TrackOn to enter SME/C2C courier services.
“We are excited about the market opportunity for end-to-end logistics and supply-chain solutions that can meet the needs of a diversified customer base across industries, including e-commerce in India,” said Deepak Dara, Senior Managing Director and Head of India at Ontario Teachers’.
Xpressbees last secured $40 million from Malaysia’s sovereign wealth fund Khazanah Nasional in April this year. The firm entered the unicorn club in February last year, after raising $300 million in Series F funding at a valuation of $1.2 billion. The round was led by Blackstone Growth, TPG Growth, and ChrysCapital. Existing investors Investcorp and Norwest Venture Partners also participated in the round.