BlackSoil Invests $2.8 Mn In Holisol To Support Expansion Plans

Delhi-based supply chain management startup Holisol has reportedly raised INR 20 Cr ($2.8 Mn) in an asset financing round. The company has said that Mumbai-based non-banking financial company BlackSoil Capital Pvt. Ltd invested in the round.

Holisol reportedly plans to use the funds for expansion, strengthening its team and eliminating existing liabilities. Prior to this round, Holisol has raised $11.5 Mn from CLSA Capital Partners and Sundeep Bhandari.

Founded in 2009 by Manish Ahuja, Naveen Rawat and Rahul S Dogar, Holisol is a supply chain organisation offering end to end solutions enabled by technology for customer’s business. The company claims to have created a design-implement-manage module to offer customers an experience of working like their own extended team with affordable, strategic and operational expertise.

With a team of over 250 employees, Holisol has 28 fulfilment centres taking over 800 sq ft warehousing space. The company claims to have more than 20 pickup centres across over 2000 pin codes.

Ankur Bansal, director at BlackSoil, said, “Holisol has a unique business model focussed on creating strategies to address specific supply-chain issues. The company is EBITDA positive and its unit economics are strong.”

Holisol competes with the likes of logistics unicorn Delhivery, Ecom Express, etc. The Indian logistics sector is at $160 Bn and estimated to be $215 Bn by 2020. The increasing need for efficient inventory management and warehouses by small ecommerce retailers and multinational companies has led to rapid growth in the logistics sector

Part of the credit for the rapid growth in the logistics sector goes to the adaptation of new-age technologies like artificial intelligence, the internet of things and machine learning. These technologies have helped boost efficiency in supply chain optimisation.

According to the World Bank’s 2018 Logistics Performance Index, India jumped to 35th rank in 2018 from 54th rank in 2016 in overall logistics performance. The demand for logistics service providers has resulted in the global logistics market registering a CAGR of more than 7% by the end of 2022.