Warburg Pincus to put ~850 cr in Ecom Express

Mumbai: Ecom Express, a logistics solutions providers to the Indian e-commerce industry, on Wednesday said an affiliate of Warburg Pincus, a leading global private equity firm focused on growth investing, has committed over Rs 850 crore ($133 million) to the company.

E-commerce fulfilment company, Delhivery, had raised a Series-D round of investment of $85 million in May 2015 led by Tiger Global Management with participation from existing investors, Multiples Alternate Asset Management, Nexus Venture Partners, Times Internet.

Viraj Sawhney, managing director of Warburg Pincus India, said, ‘‘There is a significant need for logistics capacity in India and businesses are seeking reliable service providers who can scale up with them.''

Ecom Express, headquartered in Delhi, was founded in 2012 by former executives of courier company Blue Dart, who had raised Rs.75.5 crore from private equity firm Peepul Capital.Led by T.A. Krishnan, Ecom Express has grown rapidly to become a leading player in the e-commerce logistics space in less than three years since its inception. The company currently services more than 2,800 pin-codes through more than 320 delivery centers and 8,000 employees in approximately 210 cities, and expects to handle about 50 million packages this year.

Krishnan, chief executive officer of Ecom Express said, ‘‘The infusion of capital will help us expand our footprint in Tier III, IV towns and rural areas.'' The company also plans to invest in technology, deploy advanced parcel sortation systems, strengthen network reliability and infrastructure, and finally, build the second level management team. ‘‘These initiatives will help us deliver superior customer experience and build a scalable business. We look forward to leveraging Warburg Pincus' domain expertise in logistics and the firm's global network of relationships,'' he said. Ecom Express wants to service over 10,000 pincodes covering more than 1,500 towns and cities over the next few years.

Warburg Pincus is a leading global private equity firm with more than US$35 billion in assets under management. Its active portfolio of more than 120 companies is highly diversified by stage, sector and geography. Founded in 1966, Warburg Pincus has raised 14 private equity funds which have invested more than US$50 billion in over 720 companies in more than 35 countries. Over the past decade, affiliates of private equity funds raised by Warburg Pincus have invested more than US$3 billion in Indian companies.

The firm's past and current investments in India include Alliance Tire, Ambuja Cements, Au Financiers, Avtec, Bharti Airtel, BIBA Apparels, Capital First, Continental Warehousing, DB Corp, Diliigent Power, Gangavaram Port, Havells, HDFC, IMC, Kalyan Jewellers, Kotak Mahindra Bank, Laurus Labs, Lemontree Hotels, Max India, Metropolis Healthcare, Piramal Healthcare, Quest Global Services, Quikr, Sintex and WNS. The firm is headquartered in New York with offices in Amsterdam, Beijing, Frankfurt, Hong Kong, London, Luxembourg, Mauritius, Mumbai, San Francisco, Sao Paulo and Shanghai.

Disclaimer: This information has been collected through secondary research and IBEF is not responsible for any errors in the same.