Mumbai-based on-demand hyperlocal logistics startup Shadowfax is opening a research and development centre, which will focus on new product launches and data analytics.
The centre, to be set up in Bengaluru, will house more than 60 employees, making it the largest operations setup for the startup.
“To make hyperlocal logistics efficient and optimised, it becomes critical to leverage technology to bring down costs and save on time,“ said Vaibhav Khandelwal, 23, cofounder and CTO, Shadowfax.“The R&D team will focus on getting these innovations fastest to our customers.“
Khandelwal founded Shadowfax along with Abhishek Bansal in May. The company is backed by Fidelity Investments and operates in DelhiNCR and Mumbai.
Experts say techn is at the core of making an on-demand hyperlocal delivery business profitable. Whether it is food, laundry or electronics, the race to get deliveries faster–between 30 and 120 minutes–is the top focus of all consumer internet companies.
“Our entire company is techfocussed,” said Mayank Kumar, CEO at Opinio, a hyperlocal delivery startup. “Even the people in sales or operations are from a computer science background, so that they actually understand what we are trying to do. Everyone is aligned towards the same goal of solving the problem with a tech product.”
The on-demand logistics space has seen a spate of venture capital-led transactions over the course of 2015, with startups raising equity financing from marquee risk capital investors including Sequoia Capital, Accel Partners, Sands Capital and larger logistics companies including Delhivery.
A significant portion of logistics funding is being used to build a robust technology backbone to cope with some of the biggest pain points from optimisation of manpower to slow technology adoption by merchants, broken internet connectivity and the poor mapping system in the country.
These business-to-business (B2B) companies help restaurants, food tech platforms and ecommerce companies fulfill their demand by offering delivery as a service in a 5-7 km radius.
Meanwhile, Bengalurubased first-mile logistics startup Parcelled is ramping up its technology team to 70 from 30 in the next six months and hiring for top-level technology profiles like data architects and scientists, according to Chief Technology Officer Nikhil Bansal.
India’s logistics industry was valued at around $130 billion in 2012-13, according to the latest figures available with India Brand Equity Foundation, a trust established under the commerce ministry.
