Kalaari, Norwest Venture Partners Pump In $7 Mn In Logistics Startup ElasticRun

Kalaari Capital and Norwest Venture Partners have led a $7 Mn funding round in ElasticRun, a Pune-based stealth startup.

Founded by Shitiz Bansal, Sandeep Deshmukh, and Saurabh Nigam, the startup appears to be building an asset-light, app-driven, logistics and distribution company. The startup offers services to industries across pharmaceutical, online retail, food products, automotive and hospitality sectors.

In November 2016 it was announced that both the investors had invested in ElaticRun in April 2016. The round was completed in two tranches – the first 2 Mn in April last year as well as the current funding.

The startup will utilise the funding to further build technology infrastructure, on-board talent, and expand operations.

Talking about the investment, Mohan Kumar, Executive Director, Norwest Venture Partners India said, “We invested in the ElasticRun team because of their relevant experience, having worked at DHL and Amazon. Their technology and network-centric approach to optimise the path of goods as they travel across different touch-points makes them very unique.”

ElasticRun’s co-founder Sandeep Deshmukh, was the Head of Amazon’s crowdsourced transportation channel programme before he quit in February 2016. While Shitiz Bansal worked as Senior Principal Consultant at EdgeVerve, the Infosys subsidiary, along with co-founder Saurabh Nigam.

Currently, ElasticRun is operating in the space of last-mile and middle-mile operations for the ecommerce industry and primary and secondary distribution for pharma companies.

In March 2017, Delhi-based ecommerce logistics firm, Delhivery raised $100 Mn in funding from US-based investment fund Carlyle Asia Partners, with participation from existing investor Tiger Global. Other startups in the logistics segment Rivigo, Locus, Locanix, BlackBuck, etc.

(The development was reported by ET)