Exclusive: IPO-bound Delhivery raises $277 Mn led by Fidelity

This year is shaping up nicely for the Indian startup ecosystem as a slew of companies such as Zomato, Lenskart, Flipkart and Freshworks are set to go public. While Zomato had filed its draft red herring prospectus, Delhivery has been busy in doing the groundwork for its initial public offering in 2022.

The Gurugram-based logistics company was also finalising a pre-IPO round which has now materialised. According to regulatory filings, Delhivery has passed a special resolution to allot 5,63,349 Series H preference shares at an issue price of Rs 35,655 per share to raise Rs 2,008.62 crore or $277.4 million.

Boston-based Fidelity Investments has led the round with Rs 913.01 crore or $126 million whereas GIC (Gamnat Pte) has put in Rs 547.8 crore or $75.6 million. Abu Dhabi-headquartered Chimera Investments and Pacific Horizon Trust have invested Rs 365.5 crore or $50 million and Rs 182.6 crore or $25 million respectively.

The fresh primary infusion in the decade-old firm has come after 20 months. In September 2019, Delhivery had raised $115 million from Canadian pension fund CPPIB. In December, Steadview had picked up $25 million worth of secondary shares in the company.

While a TOI report in March had said that Delhivery is in talks to raise pre-IPO capital at a valuation of $3 billion, the company is yet to disclose any figure via filings.

Early this year, Delhivery had allotted partly paid shares worth Rs 178.5 crore or $24.6 million to 17 people in its leadership team including the founders. Sahil Barua and Kapil Bharati along with Chief Business Officer Sandeep Barasia, Chief Operating Officer Ajith Pai and Chief Financial Officer Amit Agarwal were allotted shares worth Rs 24.63 crore or $3.4 million each. 

It’s worth noting that Bhavesh Manglani and Mohit Tandon, two of the five co-founders of Delhivery, had moved on from the company and they have now been reclassified as retiring and non-active promoters in the IPO-bound firm.

With the fresh infusion, Delhivery has raised over $1.1 billion across several institutional rounds. The company claims to have a presence beyond 17,500 pin codes with a full suite of logistics services. Recently, Delhivery had claimed to have fulfilled over 800 million orders since its inception in 2011.

While the company is yet to disclose its earnings for FY21, it had improved its financial performance in FY20. According to Fintrackr, it has been able to narrow its losses to Rs 269 crore in FY20 from Rs 1,772.7 crore in FY19. During the period, its consolidated revenue had surged by 76.4% to Rs 2,988.6 crore as compared to Rs 1,694 crore in the previous fiscal year.