Kalaari Capital and Norwest Venture Partners have invested $2 Mn (INR 13.7 Cr) in ElasticRun, a Pune-based stealth startup.
The two venture capital firms invested a million dollars each at a post-money valuation of $7.25 Mn (INR 49 Cr). The deal was closed in May this year. Post-investment, Raju Rajesh of Kalaari joined the Board of Directors of NTex Transportation Services Private Limited, the company that runs ElasticRun.
Founded by Shitiz Bansal, Sandeep Deshmukh and Saurabh Nigam, the startup appears to be building 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 mode. As per a social media handle of the startup, ElasticRun, founded in April 2015, has devised a disruptive operating model and technology to deliver supply chain services to its customers. It has headquarters in Pune with offices in Mumbai and Bengaluru.
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. Saurabh Nigam, the other founder, worked at EdgeVerve too, before both quit in February 2016.
Currently, ElasticRun is operating in the space of
- Last mile and middle mile operations for the ecommerce industry.
- Primary and secondary distribution for pharma companies.
It claims to be working with a Fortune 500 ecommerce company for its last mile services. It is reportedly also working with a Fortune 500 Pharma company for national distribution.
Earlier this month, Gurugram-based logistics platform, Rivigo raised $75 Mn from an affiliate of Warburg Pincus, a leading global private equity firm focussed on growth investing. Other startups in this segment include Bengaluru-based logistics management startup Locus; Ahmedabad-based logistic IoT startup Locanix; Bengaluru-based B2B logistics startup BlackBuck, etc.
