Manish Singh of Tech Crunch reports that the Ontario Teachers’ fund is backing Xpressbees, an Indian logistics firm. He writes:
Xpressbees, an Indian logistics firm that works with several e-commerce firms in the country, has raised $80 million in a new funding round led by Ontario Teachers’ late-stage venture growth fund amid a surge in the country’s online shopping activity.
The Canadian pension fund has acquired a stake in the Pune-headquartered startup at about $1.4 billion valuation, the same value at which the startup raised a Series F tranche earlier. With the latest investment round, Xpressbees’ cumulative funding has reached approximately $680 million. It didn’t share a name for the round, and also didn’t disclose how much of the new raise came via secondary transactions.
Xpressbees, which also counts Malaysian sovereign wealth fund Khazanah, TPG, Alibaba and Blackstone among backers, works with more than 1,000 clients — including financial and e-commerce services giant Paytm, social commerce startup Meesho, eyewear seller Lenskart, phone maker Xiaomi and online pharmacy NetMeds — to deliver their products across the country. […]
Ontario Teachers’ has invested over $3 billion in India, and identifies it as one its “key strategic” countries.
Xpressbees competes with a handful of established firms and startups, including publicly listed firm Delhivery and Shadowfax, which is in advanced stages of talks to raise about $60 million in a round led by TPG NewQuest, TechCrunch earlier reported.
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