Global Same-day Delivery Service Borzo Acquires NOW Delivery This is Borzo's first acquisition in India and the deal is expected to bring NOW Delivery's B2B last mile express expertise to complement Borzo's existing offerings
By S Shanthi
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Borzo, a global delivery service that enables intracity same-day delivery available in countries in EMEA and Latin America, has announced its first startup acquisition in India.
The firm is acquiring India-based NOW Delivery, an express delivery platform for local retailers for a cash + stock deal. Borzo was previously known in India as WeFast. NOW, with its fleet of over 1,500 riders, does over two million orders per annum for Top QSR, Pharma, Retail chains and many other companies. The company is present in nine cities, enabling brands to deliver orders to their own customers quickly. NOW provides transparent upfront pricing at the time of placing, real-time tracking of the delivery for clients and recipients.
Borzo said this deal would bring NOW Delivery's B2B last mile express expertise to complement Borzo's same-day delivery services. Founded in 2016, NOW Delivery was seeded by Maple Accelerator and counts Maple Capital Advisors, Abhinav Grover (Maple Accelerator), Ruchirans Jaipuria, Anuj Sanghi, Naveen Munjal of Hero Electric, Anuraag Jaipuria, and Vinay Goyal of Instavans as its investors.
"NOW has built an impressive product offering which clearly resonates with corporate customers. They've created the process for engaging hyperlocal couriers enabling lightning-fast delivery with predictable ETA", said Aleks Shamis, co-founder and Deputy CEO at Borzo. "That falls into our current strategy of acquiring complementary and viable businesses throughout the world to expand our footprint and give our own customers more options".
"Furthermore, one more thing which gravitated Borzo towards Now was the exceptional economics attained by NOW – being one of the rare start-ups in the hyperlocal space which turned Net Profitable," Aleks added. Hyperlocal is a space notorious for cash burn.
Vivek Pandey, CEO of NOW Delivery said, "Joining hands with Borzo provides us a launch pad for exponential scale up of our existing platform. It provides us with a shared infrastructure of operations, access to advanced product learnings which have been applied in WeFast in India and other markets. In the next 18 months we plan to grow 10X to a 3M orders a month with presence in 50+ cities in India and be largest B2B Hyperlocal startup in India".
Bharat Khandelwal, COO of NOW Delivery said, "NOW has built an exceptional rider network & client partnership in North India and leveraging them we would be launching another 20 cities in the next 12 months."
"NOW will enable Borzo to accelerate in the hyperlocal B2B delivery segment & enhance their India leadership. This marks the seed to EXIT journey for NOW in our accelerator program, in which Maple Capital Advisors worked at all stages in conjunction with various angels beginning from identifying the idea in 2016, enhancing business metrics, presence and EXIT within five years. We wish Vivek and team a stellar partnership with Borzo and taking the lead in the Indian hyperlocal logistics space," said Pankaj Karna, founder and MD Maple Capital Advisors.
With this acquisition NOW will continue to work as an independent brand under the current leadership of Vivek Pandey and Bharat Khandelwal, and will continue to invest in product and new market development.
