Shadowfax appoints former Myntra tech chief as independent director

Bengaluru-based logistics startup Shadowfax Technologies Pvt. Ltd has appointed former Myntra product and technology chief Shamik Sharma as an independent director.

“We look forward to leverage his (Sharma's) in-depth knowledge and expertise to help Shadowfax achieve the desired growth in a longer run,” Abhishek Bansal, co-founder and CEO at the logistics company, said in a statement.

The appointment comes a little less than a month after Shadowfax beefed up its top deck by appointing Praveen Kumar KJ as its chief financial officer. Along with him, former Myntra executive Rohit Gupta took charge as the vice president of business development and strategy.

Sharma has a masters degree in computer science from the University of Maryland. He is currently general manager at CultGear, the sports apparel and gear arm of Curefit, a health and fitness venture started by Myntra co-founder Mukesh Bansal and former Flipkart executive Ankit Nagori.

In his earlier stint, Sharma was the chief of product and technology vertical at Myntra and quit the company in December 2017, according to his Linkedin profile. In November 2016, he was moved to an advisory role when Myntra appointed a new CTO.

“Last-mile logistics is a core pillar of the new economy. Shadowfax is building a very important service which matches delivery partners with customer needs in real-time using technology,” Sharma said.

Founded in May 2015 by Abhishek Bansal and Vaibhav Khandelwal (chief technology officer), Shadowfax provides intra-city logistics services to neighbourhood merchants, grocery shops, pharmacies and e-commerce companies. It initially started out as a food-only delivery player but has diversified over the years.

Shadowfax fulfils 90,000 orders a day for its customers across sectors that include food, groceries, fashion, pharmacy, furniture, e-commerce and traditional businesse. Its clients include Domino’s Pizza, BigBasket, Amazon, Paytm, Flipkart and McDonald’s. In addition, Shadowfax recently announced its expansion to China.
By 2021, the company aims to connect four lakh new businesses and delivery partners to its platform, up from the current 40,000. Shadowfax services will be available across 5,000 pin codes all over India from this year, it said.

In August last year, it had raised $22 million in Series C funding led by US-based investment firm NGP Capital with participation from Qualcomm Ventures, Mirae Asset and existing investor Eight Roads Ventures. 

In a disclosure last September, International Finance Corporation (IFC), the private-sector investment arm of the World Bank, said that it planned to invest in Shadowfax.