Will $40 Mn Funding Help ElasticRun Step Up Its Game Against Delhivery?

Pune-headquartered logistics startup ElasticRun has raised a fresh round of $40 Mn funding. The investment has been led by Prosus Ventures (formerly Naspers Ventures), with participation from existing investors Avataar Ventures and Kalaari Capital.

The company is looking to use the fresh funds to expand its network coverage to new geographies and expand in additional categories. Avendus Capital was the exclusive financial advisor to ElasticRun on this transaction.

ElasticRun also plans to use the new funds to further build on its technology platform, expand into additional categories, and upgrade its analytics and machine learning platforms to handle the national scale.

Prior to this round, ElasticRun has raised $17 Mn in its previous funding rounds from investors such as Kalaari Capital and Norwest Venture Partners.

ElasticRun: Presence In Over 200 Cities

Founded in 2015 by Sandeep Deshmukh, Saurabh Nigam, and Shitiz Bansal, ElasticRun is an asset-light, app-driven, logistics and distribution company. ElasticRun technology allows its customers to run the transportation and supply chain systems in an asset-light model.

The team claims that with their solutions, the customers don’t have to spend capex on building fixed-capacity logistics setups. This allows the brand owners to focus on core products and do away with the concerns about managing the variability in demand.

One of the unique serving points for ElasticRun is its aggregated variable capacity transportation network. The company claims to have built its solution using idle transportation and logistics capacities from a large number of dispersed entrepreneurs.

ElasticRun caters to industries across the board, including FMCG, food, manufacturing and ecommerce. Some of the offerings by ElasticRun are primary distribution, secondary distribution and last-mile connectivity.

ElasticRun’s services are already available in over 200 cities and are built on its network of small convenience stores. ElasticRun enables small store owners to leverage the less crowded times of the day to gain increased revenue by handling local last-mile deliveries.

At the same time, ElasticRun is working with marquee consumer goods companies to offer a plug-n-play distribution network to extend their existing distribution network to the stores in its network.

“The last mile problem is still a major issue both for logistics and consumer goods companies in India. By working with a network of small stores across the country, we solve that problem while helping the store owners grow their businesses at the same time,” said Sandeep Deshmukh, cofounder and CEO, ElasticRun.

The company is reported to have earned revenues of INR 63 Cr in FY18 with a loss of INR 17 Cr. It was further reported that ElasticRun closed the fiscal year 2019 with revenues of INR 200 Cr.

Over the years, startups in this sector have come up with innovative new technologies with logistics-related software solutions, last-mile delivery, robotics, automation solutions. After the war in ecommerce, logistics has become the new battleground as it is a major enabler of the Indian ecommerce industry. With the increasing number of unicorns in the sector, the fight for dominance has become harder and expensive with the need for rapid expansion to stay relevant.