Delhivery raises over $75 mn from Lee Fixel's Addition ahead of IPO

Ahead of its proposed initial public offering (IPO), logistics platform Delhivery has raised over $75 million in funding from Lee Fixel’s venture capital firm Addition.

According to filings accessed by VCCircle, Addition has put around Rs 558 crore ($76.4 million) by subscribing to 1,46,961 compulsorily convertible preference shares (CCPS). The allotment was made in September this year. It couldn’t be immediately ascertained if other investors have also participated during the same round.  

This is said to be Addition’s second reported transaction in India. Last September, it placed its debut bet on location-based social network Public App, which was launched by English news aggregator Inshorts. Fixel is known in India mostly for leading Tiger Global’s investment in online retailer Flipkart.  

The logistics firm had secured a much larger cheque early this year. In May, it mopped up nearly $277 million (Rs 2008.6 crore then) from a group of investors led by US investment firm Fidelity.  

Singapore sovereign wealth fund GIC, which invested through its unit Gamnat Pte, Abu Dhabi based private investment firm Chimera Investment LLC and UK’s Baillie Gifford, which invested through Pacific Horizon Investment Trust, had also participated in the same round.  

It had also raised $25 million from alternative investments firm Steadview Capital in a secondary transaction in December 2020. At the time Delhivery CEO Sahil Baruah said that the company was looking to go public in 12-15 months.  

Backed by Japanese technology conglomerate SoftBank, Delhivery was founded in 2011 as a hyperlocal logistics company. It earlier operated as SSN Logistics Pvt. Ltd, providing local on-demand services and then grew to a full-fledged logistics player. At present, it commands a significant market share in the business-to-consumer ecommerce logistics space, though its business-to-business service contributes to nearly 80% of its revenues.  

Delhivery competes with Alibaba backed ecommerce focused logistics company Xpressbees which raised $110 million in November 2020, as well as Partners Group and Warburg Pincus backed Ecom Express. 

Backed by the likes of SoftBank, Carlyle, CPPIB and GIC, Delhivery paid a total of Rs 1750 crore to purchase Spoton on 25 August. The logistics firm became a unicorn in 2019 when it raised $413 million in a Series F round led by SoftBank Vision Fund. Delhivery is likely to sell a 10-15% stake for $500-600 million through the planned initial public offering (IPO), Mint reported on 9 June.  

This would value the startup at around $4 billion. Bloomberg reported on 25 August that the startup plans to file a draft prospectus "as soon as October for its IPO that could raise about $1 billion", citing unnamed sources.