With the increasing demand of products online, speedy fulfillment of orders is something which not just “Good to have” but it is the expectation of each consumer.

In order to ensure the faster and expedited delivery of the products and to capture most of the market base businesses have already got in to the race of developing new technologies and experimental supply chain models and few leading startups like Shadowfax offering last mile delivery solutions are coming at the forefront.

The major aim of these models is to increase shipment volume and focus on expedited delivery to ensure a happy and delightful consumer.

What is last mile delivery?

If we talk about last mile delivery in layman’s term it refers to the final delivery of the product to the end user or the consumer.

During the journey of a product from the shelf of a warehouse to the doorstep of a consumer, the “Last Mile” refers to the final step of the process. The point where the product finally reaches the buyer’s door.

It is also referred to as the major aspect of customer satisfaction because as early as the consumer receives the product more satisfied he/she is.

In addition to being customer satisfaction aspect, the last mile delivery is also considered to be the most expensive and time-consuming part of the shipping process.

Importance of last-mile delivery in B2B Logistics:

With the expectations been set by the e-commerce companies amongst the consumers. Majority of the B2B clients also like to enjoy the same purchasing facilities that is being granted to the B2C side.

B2B logistics movement plays a major role in the industry as these are the huge transactions and need to be completed effectively and efficiently.

Also the reverse logistics is one of the major trouble faced by the B2B companies due to huge cost involved. Therefore, importance of last mile delivery in B2B logistics cannot be ignored.

About Shadowfax

When it comes to last mile delivery solutions you always need a trusted partner to ensure that you are able to fulfill your promise and ensure customer satisfaction.

Now a days Shadowfax is emerging as the leading on demand logistic network offering tech enabled one stop shop delivery solutions be it Groceries, pharmaceuticals or E-commerce deliveries.

Shadowfax is enabling millions of micro-entrepreneurs and suppliers in logistics using a singular platform/IOTs to bridge the information gap and eliminate inefficiencies across the entire value chain of logistics.

Origin of Shadowfax:

Established back in 2015 with a seed funding of $300k, the company has grown itself in to leaps and bounds. The company since its inception started acquiring small businesses.

Shadowfax was the one that launched same day delivery for the e-commerce industry and also the same day heavy shipment intercity deliveries.

Shadowfax while operating profitably, kept on increasing its daily partners and further kept widening its span and secured its place in the Forbes India 30 under 30.

Currently operating in 500 cities, Shadowfax is fulfilling 400,000 orders each day. Last year i.e. 2019 it has also foray in to social commerce and kirana delivery model.

The Shadowfax Leadership:

Bengaluru based Shadowfax is the brainchild of few IIT Delhi Alumini, i.e.

1. Abhishek Bansal

Abhishek Bansal Co-Founder and CEO of Shadowfax completed his B.tech from IIT Delhi in Production and Industrial engineering. After that he served a company referred to as HAY group prior to the establishment of Shadowfax, India’s most trusted on-demand last mile logistics network.

 3. Vaibhav Khandelwal

Vaibhav Khandelwal Co-Founder and CTO of Shadowfax completed his B.tech from IIT Delhi in Electronics and telecommunication engineering. After that he served few companies like Adobe & System 2 Advisors, LP prior to the establishment of Shadowfax, India’s most trusted on-demand last mile logistics network.

3. Gaurav Jaithliya

Gaurav Jaithliya Co-Founder and Chief of strategy at Shadowfax completed his Masters in Technology, mathematics and computing from IIT Delhi. After that he served Gulf Talent as a senior software engineer in Dubai prior to the establishment of Shadowfax, India’s most trusted on-demand last mile logistics network.

4. Praharsh Chandra

Praharsh Chandra Co-Founder and CFO at Shadowfax completed his B.Tech in Mechanical Engineering from IIT Delhi. After that he was associated with A.T Kearney prior to the establishment of Shadowfax, India’s most trusted on-demand last mile logistics network.

Apart from these major founders or we can say the Pillars of Shadowfax. It has a huge pool of talent in every department to ensure smooth functioning of the business. Be it human resource or finance, all the departments are well equipped with the brilliant minds.

Investors and Funding

Shadowfax was established back in 2015 with a seed funding of $300k from Kunal Bahl, Rohit Bansal and others.

Over the years Shadowfax has received a series of funds:

1. $8.5 Million– Series A Funding from Eight Roads Ventures in 2015.
2. $10 Million- Series B Funding from fidelity investments in 2016.
3. $22 Million- Series C Funding from NGP Capital, Qualcomm and Mirae Asset in 2018.
4. $60 Million- Series D Funding led by Flipkart in 2019.

Shadowfax Network and Orders year on year

1. 2015: The business launched itself with a presence in 5 cities with a delivery Capacity of 15000 orders per day.
2. 2016: The Business after launching Same Day Delivery for E-commerce made its presence available in 15 cities and delivering 30000 orders per day.
3. 2017: Shadowfax after the launch of its Next day Express intercity deliveries and same day heavy shipment intracity deliveries the company made its presence available in 75 cities and delivering 80000 orders per day.
4. 2018: With marking its entry into FMCG and consumer goods intracity distribution. Shadowfax almost doubled its presence in to 200 cities with delivery of 150000 orders per day.
5. 2019:  Shadowfax foray into Social Commerce and Kirana Delivery Model and made its existence available in 500 cities with delivering 400000 orders per day.

Milestones in Shadowfax Journey

1. 500+ Active cities which are currently serviceable.
2. 7000+ Pin codes for hassle free delivery.
3. 100k+ and growing partner network.
4. More than 1 Cr+ monthly transactions.
5. 3000+ commercial vehicles and still counting.
6. 35+ Air Routes.

Delivery Services Offered by Shadowfax

Shadowfax is on its fast track growth of becoming India’s biggest B2B one stop new-age logistics solution company.

Various Services that Shadowfax is currently offering:

1. Hyperlocal Delivery
2. Same Day Delivery
3. Next Day Delivery

1. Hyperlocal Delivery

Shadowfax is offering instant delivery of essential products like Food, Medicines and Grocery under this service. This instant delivery time can range between 30-90 minutes.

With the help of the Live tracking system it becomes easier for delivery partner through optimized routes to ensure hyperlocal deliveries are completed effectively and efficiently.

2. Same Day Delivery

With its huge span over the states and the country. Shadowfax is offering the fastest intracity delivery services in India.

Be it reverse logistics or Express Grocery delivery. The LCV Fleet offers fast and reliable same day delivery.

3. Next Day Delivery

To ensure minimum time is taken to deliver the products, Shadowfax offers its express intercity delivery service.

With a stronghold on technology and an impeccable air and surface connectivity, the forward logistics and Kirana delivery is ensured to reach the destination in the minimum time possible the very next day.

Categories of operation

Shadowfax has emerged as a leader in last-mile delivery and last mile logistics solutions and has further divided the categories of its delivery services.

Various categories of operations that Shadowfax operated under are:

1. Food Delivery
2. Pharmacy Delivery
3. Grocery Delivery
4. E-Commerce Deliveries
5. E-Commerce Reverse Logistics
6. Economy Express

1. Food Delivery

Curing the hunger, Shadowfax is serving the biggest players in the food industry and local restaurants to ensure that the last mile carrier service is completed hassle free at any hour.

2. Pharmacy Delivery

Shadowfax Ensures 90-minute delivery of the pharmacy products through its widely spread last mile delivery network. To effectively manage the criticality behind the delivery of the medicines.

3. Grocery Delivery

To ensure that the end consumer is able to get the quality service at the comfort of their home. Shadowfax is offering last mile delivery service for Grocery items within the stipulated time to eliminate the customer efforts and providing the services at their doorstep.

4. E-Commerce Deliveries

With the movement of people from offline to the online market, Shadowfax is all set to ensure the last mile delivery and help E-commerce giants fulfill their promise.

Services Offered under E-commerce

• Pickup from Marketplace or the Warehouse.
• Multimode Connectivity across PAN India.
• Calls Masked over the network to reduce the chances of fraud.
• Feature to track end to end shipment.
• Doorstep payment solution.

5. E-Commerce Return logistics

Return logistics can be a nightmare for any seller and the reason being the huge cost and time involved in the process.

However, Shadowfax with its tech based and cast network has made Return logistics a cost effective process.

6. Economy Express

To eliminate the consumer pain areas and to ensure seamless & super speed delivery of intercity goods. Shadowfax has emerged as the most cost effective, trusted and efficient partner.

Establishing Gold Standards in Reverse Logistics

Shadowfax reverse logistics has beaten its own expectations through a successful launch of e-Commerce logistics 2.0 which has taken the reverse logistics to a new height by identifying each and every pain area.

With the identification of these areas and using its tech based last mile delivery technique has developed a seamless reverse logistics network to ensure businesses are able to get back maximum shipments.

Solutions Shadowfax is offering

• Quality Check with 18000+ checkpoints at the doorstep.
• Auto allocation of pickups instantly along with live updates on successful quality check.
• Quality Check at the door step offers direct shipping to the merchants.
• No need to wait for 3-4 days for refunds, Shadowfax offers instant refunds.
• No manual paper work involved eliminating the dead weight of paper for the riders.
• Merchants can define the priority of the pickup.

Milind adds, “In the near future, we are working hard to predict scheduled pickups and be able to pick products up within 90 minutes of a customer’s request. Both our clients and their customers will love a doorstep KYC procedure and instant replacement for the products. We have received some requests for customized packaging as well.”

Shadowfax Seller Portal

Shadowfax offers an app based platform for the merchants to ensure that they are able to track the delivery of their orders on the go.

Along with that Shadowfax Seller Portal 2.0 version of the e-commerce logistics offered by Shadowfax enables the merchants to set the priority of the orders or the return logistics.

Not only that the transparency in the Shadowfax Seller portal dashboard helps make the entire process hassle free for merchants and Shadowfax both.

Shadowfax Order Tracking

Shadowfax offers a great order tracking system with live tracking that makes Shadowfax order tracking system user friendly and ensures complete customer satisfaction.

In Shadowfax Order Tracking system you just need to enter the tracking id and you are all set to get the latest updates regarding your order.

Also the inbuilt notification system in Shadowfax Order tracking platform makes you aware about all the latest updates.

Other Last Mile delivery startups

1. BLACKBUCK: Blackbuck is an Indian last mile delivery startup for online logistics transaction to provide one stop solution to the users, Delivering anything anywhere.
2. BookMyPacket: BookMyPacket is a technology based logistic operator providing express service, which is effective, efficient and easy on pocket. It is one of the top rated Last mile delivery startup.
3. Ecom Express: Ecom Express one of the last mile delivery startup has seen rapid growth by proving end to end last mile logistics solution to the Indian E-Commerce industry.
4. CityXfer: One of the leading Indian last mile delivery startup offering intracity logistic service for volumetric products with the help of innovative technology.
5. Grofers: Grofers has established itself as one of the leader in the last mile delivery startup by enabling the end user to order the product from different categories using its mobile app and online platform.

Last mile delivery is increasingly getting popularity in India as a new wave of startups are coming on the forefront with innovative ideas and technologies to address the inefficiencies in the sector.

And with the ongoing automation across the industries, it’s expected that we may witness delivery robots, drones, and self-driven vehicles attempting these last mile deliveries in near future.

The post All you need to know about Shadowfax – A Last Mile Delivery Network appeared first on Growthonomy.

With the spreading of education amongst the people and a high rise in pollution because of a large number of vehicles on road, which is increasing day by day, the demand for electrical vehicles is touching a new horizon. And with this steadfast increase and non-fulfillment of the demand amongst the consumers, the big giants of the industry are all set to acquire the small startups to increase their production and profit.

People knowledgeable in the entire matter said that the company is still in the process of finalizing the deal. Also, the proposal us that the entire deal transaction will be cashless, wherein Grow Mobility will be offered shares within the company itself.

Grow Mobility – Emergence and Losses

Grow Mobility has emerged as one of the most promising and prominent startups of Latin America. It was a merger of a Mexican Scooter Company Startup named GRIN and its Brazilian Counterpart YELLOW last year. It has attracted huge interest from the top venture capitalists in the Silicon Valley.

As is well-said, Business is not meant for everyone. You need an effective and efficient strategy to run a business. However, as per the close people of the company, the Mexico based startup has badly struggled in recent months. It has faced a lot of losses due to the lack of a sound business model.

Grow Mobility’s search for a buyer shows a broader shift in the scooter industry. Investors and entrepreneurs have realized that the sector can accommodate so many players, an analyst said.

“Most of these things have been a quick boom and quick bust,” said analyst Bob O’Donnell of TECHnalysis Research.

Who will be profitable?

Now the bigger question is who is able to outlast the other? As per some tech industry insiders, it is better and profitable for mobility startups for 2 wheelers i.e. bikes and scooters, to operate on a large portfolio rather than as standalone companies. So if the deal successfully completes, it would certainly be a profitable deal for both Peixe and Grow Mobility.

The post E-commerce firm Peixe in talks to buy electric scooter startup Grow Mobility appeared first on Growthonomy.

Good enough! That’s the mentality most of us carry. But have you ever thought that even when you are purchasing from one particular shop for several years, what extra benefit did you get? Let’s leave the benefits aside and talk about do we even know about the competitor brands, what prices they are offering or what quality they are offering apart from the brands that our regular grocery seller has. No! Right?

When the entire economy has been digitalized, there is a transformation that is much needed for our nearby grocery stores as well. This visionary idea has laid a foundation for an eCommerce platform based in Bengaluru i.e. Near.Store which has successfully raised a seed funding of $300,000.

Ashish Kumar, founder of Near.Store said, “There is a huge potential for the right product, one that doesn’t need a change in behavior at the store. India has over 12 million kirana (corner) stores, which contribute to over 90% of the consumer goods sales, dwarfing both modern retail and online that together.”

Near.Store, is a plug & play based ecommerce platform for the offline stores and has raised a huge seed funding of $300,000 from Sauce.vc, an early stage consumer focused VC fund and also the other individual investors.

Near.Store will enable local stores to digitize their entire inventory online and develop new consumer base & relationships along with the access to business data and insights to make their business more effective and efficient.

The Near.Store is based on a unique platform wherein the only effort required from the store owner is to plug the Near.Store dongle device into their billing machines or mobile phone and the patent-pending platform i.e. Near.Store will automatically get the inventory online immediately. Once plugged in, the AI (Artificial Intelligence) and ML (Machine Learning) algorithms, which are inbuilt in the platform take over and manage the various aspects of discovery (SEO), and hyper-local promotion of the store website.

“Most existing solutions are dependent on the mobile phone based apps, which make the process of going online very difficult and time consuming. In most scenarios, such products get abandoned by store-owners because of the cumbersome nature of their cataloging experience,” said the founder of Near.Store.

With the Headquarters based in Mumbai, Near.Store is led by an experienced team of three digital entrepreneurs who have unbeatable experience in the field of digital marketing, digital transformation and fin-tech. The Near.Store team has also been supported and appreciated by Shripad Nadkarni, ex-marketing head of Coca Cola and Johnson & Johnson, founder of Maverix Food Platforms and co-creator of the Paperboat and Epigamia Brands.

Mr. Manu Chandra, Founder of Sauce.vc said that “The Near.Store team has a deep and intrinsic understanding and knowledge of the Indian digital space and has a proven track record of creating and running successful companies and businesses. Local grocery/kirana stores are the mainstay of India’s CPG landscape and getting them digitalized in a zero effort manner holds a great potential for the entire retail ecosystem to help grow and expand the entire economy at a rapid pace.”

The post eCommerce Platform Near.Store Raises $300,000 Seed Fund appeared first on Growthonomy.