It is rumoured that Alibaba is in talks to make a $100m investment in Indian logistics start-up XpressBees.
It’s clear that Alibaba is keen to expand its operations in India to compliment their ecommerce activities, it has already made a play for payments and groceries in the second most populous country in the world.
XpressBees was founded by Amitava Saha and Supam Maheshwari, who also started First Cry, a baby products retailer. First Cry took over a rival baby products startup BabyOye and created a stir in a significant deal several years ago.
XpressBees positions itself as an end-to-end logistics provider and handles deliveries, reverse logistics, payment collection, drop shipping, vendor management, cross-border services, fulfillment services and software solutions for online retailer.
It’s reported that they already handle 60,000 shipments a day and seeing decent growth. XpressBees has already raised series A funding several years ago from investors including SAIF Partners, IDG Ventures, Vertex Ventures and Valiant Capital worth about $12.5 million. So $100m would be a very decent boost to the firm.
If Alibaba does take a stake then it will join other recent investments in India including Paytm ($1 billion), Paytm Mall ($175 million), Snapdeal ($150 millon), BigBasket ($300 million) and TicketNew ($30 million).
India remains a key ecommerce arena with both Amazon and Flipkart leading the charge and fighting for dominance.
