Mumbai-based logistics startup Wow Express raises Rs 30 crore in Series A

Mumbai-based logistics startup Wow Express announced it has raised $4.5 million (Rs 30 crore) in a Series A round of funding. Existing seed fund investors including the Tamarind family trust of the Mansukhani family participated in the funding round. Altogether, the company has raised $7.2 million.

Founded by Sandeep Padoshi, Jaysh Kamat, and Mazhar Faruqi in 2015, Wow Express provides first mile, last mile and warehousing and e-fulfilment solutions for ecommerce deliveries, and follows an asset-light business model.

In a press release, Sandeep, who is the Director of Wow Express, says, “With this round of funding we aim to double our revenues and geographical reach. The emphasis continues to be on providing Wow Service to our customers while keeping our Service Marshals at the heart of everything we do. The funds are going to be utilised to strengthen our IT platform and leadership.”

Wow Express now covers over 1600 zip codes across 40 cities, with 70 branches. The team of 850 handles more than 20,000 shipments daily.

Unlike online shopping delivery market leaders like EcomExpress or Delhivery, Wow Express provides air transport for intra-city movements to ensure faster delivery. It has more than 40 ecommerce clients, including Nykaa, Amazon, Lime Road, Blue Fox, Tata Cliq, Vista Print, and Shein, among others. It claims to have achieved monthly breakeven in April.

Strategic expansion

With ecommerce leaders Flipkart and Amazon constantly investing in expanding their own logistics capacity, Wow Express recently decided to pan out to other sectors too. Since last year, its new initiative ‘Wow Health Express’ has been working with many pharma and diagnostics companies, including Cipla, 1 MG, 3i Molecular Solutions and Healthcare, and Sehgal Path Labs, and Lilac across Mumbai, Bengaluru, Delhi, Cochin, and Chandigarh.

The press release quotes Vijay Mansukhani from Tamarind Family Trust as saying, “The solid performance that Wow Express has demonstrated over the past three years and the potential of ecommerce in India is very encouraging. That is why we have decided to invest in the company again. The company is innovative, asset lite and bottom line focused and we expect Wow to exponentially grow and lead the diagnostic logistics space with Wow Health Express.”