E-commerce Logistics Start-up Shiprockets’ recent $185 million Series E funding co-led by Zomato, Temasek, and Light rock India gets hit by controversy when TV Mohandas Pai, former CFO, Infosys in a tweet, questioned any conflict of interest if a listed company invests in a startup where the founder of the listed company had invested.
The tweet was pointing towards the Zomato founder Deepinder Goyal’s investment in Shiprocket.
Goyal had already made a personal investment in the logistics start-up of $100,000 before Zomato stepped in as an investor.
However, countering Pai’s tweet, Goyal quickly clarified that before Zomato’s investment, he had exited his investment in Shiprocket at zero profit.
He pointed that this personal investment was one of the key reasons Zomato got closer to Shiprocket and its founders, and that’s “how we discovered that there’s potential long term strategic fit between the two companies.” He said they may continue to follow this strategy of personal investments followed by company investments.
Goyal also berated Pai for marking his tweet to Sanjeev Bikhchandani, founder of Info Edge, an early investor in Zomato, instead of to him.
Launched in 2017, Shiprocket is the fastest company to become profitable in 24 months while also doubling its ARR over the last 6 months. Shiprocket’s technology powers shipping and fulfillment for SMEs, D2C retailers, and social commerce sellers in India, across multiple categories including BPC, Apparel, Footwear, Electronics, and Healthcare, among others.
The company said, it looks forward to deploying its freshly infused capital towards core product expansion, R&D, talent acquisition, and development of a comprehensive suite of products that will help retailers deliver seamless customer experience in line with that of large e-commerce platforms.
A portion of the funds will also be directed towards the platform’s new strategic initiatives, including hyperlocal delivery services offering deliveries with low turnaround times, on the back of its extensive courier partnerships and growing fulfillment network and global expansion, starting with the Middle East.
Source:TOI
