Borzo Acquires India-based Last Mile Delivery Startup NOW

SUMMARY

The current management will continue leading the Indian startup and expect to exceed 5 Mn deliveries in 2022

NOW is present in eight cities and it enables restaurant and pharmacy chains, aggregators, ecommerce and D2C brands to deliver orders

NOW founders – Vivek Pandey and Bharat Khandelwal have earned decades of relevant experience working at Flipkart, Times Internet, and Nelson before starting their venture

Global same-day intra-city delivery service company Borzo has acquired NOW, an India-based last-mile delivery service startup. According to the company statement, the acquisition, advised by Maple Capital Advisors, is in line with Borzo wanting to strengthen its position in the region and provide more tailored delivery options to its customers.

NOW, which is an on-demand last-mile delivery startup, does close to two million orders per annum for KFC, Pizza Hut, Apollo Pharmacies, Amazon among others with its fleet of over 1500 riders.

The startup is present in eight cities and enables restaurant and pharmacy chains, aggregators, ecommerce and direct-to-consumer (D2C) brands to deliver orders to their own customers quickly. NOW provides transparent upfront pricing at the time of placing, real-time tracking of the delivery for clients and recipients, as per the statement.

Post the acquisition, NOW will stay as an independent entity. However, it will be able to leverage the expertise of Borzo and its operations across 10 countries.

The founding team of Vivek Pandey and Bharat Khandelwal has earned decades of relevant experience working at Flipkart, Times Internet, and Nelson before starting up NOW. The current management will continue leading the startup and expect to exceed 5 Mn deliveries in 2022.

“NOW has built an impressive product offering that clearly resonates with corporate customers. They’ve created the process for engaging hyperlocal couriers enabling lightning-fast delivery with predictable ETA”, said Aleks Shamis, cofounder & deputy CEO at Borzo.

“That falls into our current strategy of acquiring complementary and viable businesses throughout the world to expand our footprint and give our own customers more options,” he added.

“Both NOW and Borzo share the same underlying principle, utilizing advanced algorithms and carefully managing operations to provide superb delivery services”, said Vivek Pandey, cofounder and CEO of NOW.

Pandey said Borzo has built a significant presence in the region and his team is excited to partner with them. In his words, “Joining forces will allow us to rapidly scale up in a market where demand for hyperlocal deliveries is in millions per day.”

Founded in Russia in 2012, WeFast rebranded itself into Borzo in August 2021, to consolidate the startup’s global business to ensure operational synchronicity and integrity of the company’s brand perception. Borzo has been present in India as WeFast, enabling same-day intra-city delivery via any route and transport, any weight or size. In Q3 2021 Borzo performed 10 Mn deliveries worldwide.