Temasek- and Zomato-backed logistics unicorn Shiprocket is gearing up for an acquisition spree in 2025, even as the company prepares for its listing.
The Gurugram-headquartered company, which is eyeing an initial public offering (IPO) and is in the planning stages, recently converted to a public company.
Saahil Goel, managing director and chief executive officer, said, “We have been acquisitive in the past. We have been profitable for this financial year and we will end the year profitably, which means we have the capability to use cash to drive acceleration,” he said.
“If you ask me, will we ramp up this year, the answer is yes,” he added. However, he did not share further details on the acquisition targets.
He added that in the evolving digital commerce landscape, Shiprocket will either acquire or develop in-house any capabilities it currently lacks.
“The four big pillars for our acquisition strategy are business in fulfilment and shipping, finance, payments, and marketing. As long as these four elements exist, we are interested in looking at companies in different segments, because that gives us the capability,” Goel said.
In 2022 alone, Shiprocket acquired six companies, including Rocketbox, Pickrr, Wigzo Tech, Glaucus Logistics, Rocket, and Omuni, as per data from Tracxn, a market intelligence platform.
“If we identify a sub-capability that we do not yet possess, we will explore opportunities to either acquire it or build it internally. That’s the guiding framework for our acquisition strategy,” Goel explained.
Speaking about the company’s past acquisitions, Goel said, “All our acquisitions were made to rapidly expand our tech stack and to solve merchant pain points across different transaction levels. We made significant investments in expanding our fulfilment services, international shipping, and tech stack to establish ourselves as the first ‘SaaS for SMB’ platform in India. Shiprocket’s core business remains profitable, with acquired businesses playing an important role in this.”
Citing the example of a recent acquisition, Goel said that the integration of Pickrr’s domestic shipping has further solidified Shiprocket’s core business performance. Before the acquisition, Pickrr was the company’s direct competitor.
When asked whether the company plans to raise funds as it looks to acquire, Goel said there are no plans so far. Shiprocket recently raised $27 million in an extension of its Series E round in late December 2024 and January 2025. The round witnessed participation from KDT Ventures, MUFG Bank, Tribe Capital, SAI Global, and other individual investors, according to the company.
Founded in 2012, Shiprocket works with direct-to-consumer (D2C) brands and ecommerce players. It is also expanding its presence in the cross-border business segment.
Goel added that the company’s top priorities in 2025 will be adopting artificial intelligence (AI) to save time and optimise workflow, growing the current base of merchants, aggressively expanding cross-border business, and bringing more offline merchants to the company’s fold.
“I think there is a very bright future for exports, and we want to be at the centre stage of that when it happens and when it explodes. We don’t look at businesses as what they will contribute to the total. It will continue to grow as a share of the business because we believe that this industry is only two years old from a digitisation perspective. No significant work has gone into it,” he said.
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