Category Archives: Supply Chain

Shipsy, raises USD 25 million in a Series B round co-led by A91 Partners and Z3 Partners along with existing investors Info Edge and Sequoia Capital India’s Surge. The freshly raised funds will enable the logistics startup to maintain its growing stronghold in the Middle East, India, and Southeast Asian markets while also accelerating the company’s aim of global expansion into Europe and the US. In addition to this, Shipsy will also utilize these funds to drive rapid technological innovation with a greater focus on enhancing logistics sustainability and its AI, ML, and Blockchain capabilities. “We are thrilled to partner with seasoned investors with a common vision to transform the global logistics industry technology. Their continued support strengthens our mission of enabling customers to achieve sustainable business and logistics excellence. It takes us closer to our goal of becoming the de-facto logistics operating system globally,” said Soham Chokshi, CEO and Co-Founder, Shipsy. “Shipsy’s technology offering enables them to be the single partner of choice for enterprises who are transforming their logistics operations. Large category-leading customers have been thrilled at the impact of Shipsy in their operations. We look forward to partnering with them as they become a leader in logistics software,” said Kaushik Anand, Partner at A91 Partners. Shipsy’s growth is driven by its continuous focus on enabling businesses to provide customer transparency, flexibility, and convenience.

Tata Steel has been rated “A” and is listed as 2021 ‘Supplier Engagement Leader’ by CDP, a global environmental non-profit charity, for its initiatives to reduce GHG emissions and tackle climate-change risks across its supply chain. This is the second time in three years that the Company has been included on the Global Leaderboard. Over the last three decades, Tata Steel has made concerted efforts in various areas including supply chain to mitigate climate change and manage climate risks. Tata Steel launched its Responsible Supply Chain Policy in FY20 to encourage supply chain partners to integrate sustainability principles in their decisions and processes. The Company works in collaboration with its supply chain partners towards promoting sustainable business practices for a better planet. Peeyush Gupta, Vice President, Supply Chain, Tata Steel, said: “As part of our vision to be the global steel industry benchmark in value creation and corporate citizenship, we are committed towards climate action and adopting sustainable practices across our value chain. We will continue to engage with our supply chain partners and encourage them to adopt and maintain management practices to improve their energy & resource efficiency and environmental performance. We have also taken several initiatives over the last two years to lower Scope 3 carbon emissions and have plans to significantly reduce our footprint in future.” Sonya Bhonsle, Global Head of Value Chains & Regional Director Corporations, CDP, said: “Our data shows that companies currently have blinkers on when it comes to assessing their indirect impacts and engaging with suppliers to reduce them. Companies must act urgently to cascade action and manage environmental impacts throughout their supply chains to scale the level of action to secure a …

TESSOL, a globally recognized Indian Cold Chain Solution provider that aims to solve the last mile distribution problem in India is all set to raise the bar of Cold Chain solutions in India. The brand had launched a break-through ice-cream and frozen food delivery solution last year, indiWRAPTM which has been extremely successful in helping brands fulfil their promise and reach a wider customer base. Encouraged by the success in ice cream delivery with e-commerce brands, TESSOL has expanded the product range to include other verticals like Gourmet Chocolates, imported fruits, Seafood and Meats as well as Pharmaceutical products. The solution ensures product quality with a 60 min temperature maintenance guarantee in every delivery without using any insulation and this further help brands increase their delivery radius in a simple and cost-effective manner. With insulation, the product can be cost effectively transported up to 72 hours! Commenting on the success of indiWRAPTM, Mr. Rajat Gupta, Founder & CEO, TESSOL said, “We are excited about the success of our PCM based indiWRAPTM in keeping the ice-cream and frozen chilled while maintaining the taste on the go. With the new expanded range, a lot more Brands will be able to benefit from this technology this summer. This will not only increase brand’s bandwidth but further help them gaining their customers trust and confidence.”

With an objective of understand the implications of various changes and amendments in the existing Customs Notifications and Tariff/Duty structure announced by the Union Finance Minister while presenting the Union Budget 2022-23 on February 1, the Federation of Freight Forwarders’ Associations in India organised a webinar on the same. The webinar was addressed by eminent Advocate Consultant and also Mentor on Legal matter, empanelled with FFFAI, Joshua Ebenezer provided detailed analysis of the changes/amendments made in the Budget 2022 concerning Customs clearance and tariff. The webinar was also addressed by Shankar Shinde, Chairman; Dushyant Mulani, Chairman Elect; AV Vijayakumar, Immediate Past Chairman; S. Ramakrishna, Past Chairman & Advisor and other office bearers of FFFAI. The webinar was attended by approximately 200 FFFAI members from across the country. Ebenezer analysed the changes and amendments very eloquently and simply with relevant examples for better understanding of the participants. He also made caution about the ambiguities due to self-contradictions betwen different amendments, which according to him, requires further clarifications from the Customs authority. Addressing the gathering, Shankar Shinde thanked all FFFAI Office Bearers, Advisors and members for participating in the webinar. He also appreciated FFFAI members for providing inputs before the Budgeted 2022, which were discussed with the CBIC, Ministry of Finance as pre-Budget discussions. According to the FFFAI Chairman, many of them have been addressed in this Budget and FFFAI would continue the dialogue with the government for further facilitation of Customs clearance as well as foreign trade. Earlier, Dushyant Mulani conveyed that amendments in the Union Budget are always eagerly awaited by Industry. From a customs point of view, it is not only about the changes in tariff but also about …

Increff, a leading Indian Supply Chain SaaS innovator offering inventory optimization solutions for e-commerce, fashion, and retail brands has raised $12 million in its Series B funding round. TVS Capital Funds, Premji Invest, Binny Bansal’s 021 Capital, and 6 existing angels participated in this round. Focusing on expanding its global presence, Increff will utilize the funds for setting up offices and strengthening the local teams in the US and European region. Furthermore, the capital raised will be invested in adding visionary products, and services, to Increff’s portfolio for supply chain optimization. Increff offers a host of SaaS-based industry-agnostic merchandising solutions and smart warehousing solutions. As businesses around the globe begin to recover from the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, brands are pinning their hopes on cutting-edge tech solutions to navigate through intense price pressures, inventory mismanagement issues, demand fulfillment challenges, etc. Leveraging intelligent automation tools offered by Increff, brands, and retailers can easily adapt to the ever-changing consumer expectations through algorithm-based merchandise planning, pricing, allocation solutions, and achieve higher inventory accuracy & order fulfillment efficiency with warehousing solutions. Increff is well placed in solving the challenges of the customers for more than 10 retail verticals. Currently, they are market leaders in the fashion space in India and the Middle East and are seeing a growing clientele in the US and Europe.

Snowman Logistics Limited has completed the construction of a temperature-controlled warehouse at Coimbatore and the facility has become operational during February 2022. The total capacity of the facility is 4020 Pallets. It is a multi-temperature facility designed to store products ranging from ambient temperature to -25 Deg Centigrade with 8 chambers, 6 loading bays with related infrastructure that includes G+5 racking system, modern handling equipment and ample refrigerated truck parking space. The facility will mainly cater to the storage, handling and transportation of quick service restaurants, poultry, ready-to-eat food, ice cream, dairy products, confectionery & bakery products, seafood, fruits & vegetables, pharma, and other products. Snowman also starts its SnowServe facility – a fulfilment centre for Amazon India in Pune. Amazon will be using this facility for the delivery of FMCG perishables including vegetables, fruits, eggs, frozen food, and groceries in the city. The facility is spread across 12,000 sqft area and has sorting, grading, packing and labeling process lines. It is also equipped with storage for grocery, FMCG and temperature controlled products. It is a multi-temperature facility designed to store products ranging from ambient temperature to -25 Deg Centigrade with 3 no of chambers, 3 loading bays with related infrastructure that includes racking system, modern handling equipment and ample refrigerated truck parking space. “Snowman has been catering to a comprehensive network of reputed clients and meeting their temperature-controlled environment requirement through technology-enabled facilities and platforms. Our know-how on handling food and complex operations has helped us perform in ecom fulfillment centres and deliver compliance, quality and efficiency. Our association with Amazon gets stronger with the functioning of Pune facility after successfully delivering across Mumbai and Delhi.” says Sunil Nair, …

In yet another acquisition, Shiprocket has acquired a majority stake in Glaucus Supply Chain Solutions Pvt. Ltd., a leading supply chain management company, and plans to merge in due course. The transaction will allow Shiprocket to accelerate the development of solutions that will improve speed, accuracy, and efficiency in the post-purchase process across trade channels. “In an environment where it is becoming increasingly important for every brand to delight their customers with both products and services, it is essential to build innovative, resilient solutions to unlock the next phase of growth for the industry at large. There is a very clear need to remove the fulfillment complexity across B2B and B2C channels for our clients and help them focus on what they do best – make and sell products. We are thrilled to announce our acquisition of Glaucus Supply Chain Solutions Pvt. Ltd. With our technology prowess, capital availability, and ability to focus on solving problems for our current and future clients, we aspire to become the country’s largest provider of fulfillment services. We welcome the Glaucus team onboard and look forward to working with them.” said Saahil Goel, Co-Founder, and CEO of Shiprocket Glaucus provides enterprise-grade fulfillment services to mid-market brands supported by a mature combination of processes, geographic spread, quality reporting, and proprietary technology. B2B distribution, sales return management, D2C marketplace fulfillment, and managed transportation are a few of the services offered by Glaucus’ key. The company has an established presence in Gurgaon, Mumbai, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Ludhiana, Faridabad, and Sonipat.

Coimbatore and nearby areas that are known for presence of manufacturing industries in various sectors will soon benefit from modern logistics facilities. The Central Government has identified Coimbatore as one of the two locations in the State for a multi-modal logistics park. The park is expected to meet the logistics needs of not only those involved in foreign trade but also for domestic cargo movement. An official of the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) said, “The park would come up on 100 to 120 acres in Coimbatore district. The Tamil Nadu Industrial Development Corporation would identify the land. Simultaneously, two private companies were preparing a detailed project report and the NHAI would develop the infrastructure. We hope that bids will be called in a year to develop the park.” The park will have warehouses and proximity and access for air, rail, and road cargo movement. The land will be identified taking into consideration several such factors, the official added. Raja M. Shanmugham, president of Tiruppur Exporters Association, said this was a much-needed infrastructure. The government should ensure that costs reduce for the exporters because of the facility. “Such infrastructure are meant to support a region’s trade. So the infrastructure should be created first and these will gain the trade’s patronage over a period of time,” he said.

India’s leading commercial EV manufacturer Altigreen raises ~Rs 300 crore (approx. US$ 40 Million) through its Series A round, to boost its EV manufacturing and launch new products including LCVs and strengthen its countrywide presence. With its road-ready commercial EVs, powered by its proprietary drivetrain technology the company is already changing the face of last-mile delivery and, with this funding, will rapidly accelerate towards its next phase of growth. The freshly raised funds will be utilized to ramp up production capabilities, accelerate R&D, fast-paced EV adoption, and develop a robust Pan-India network to offer the best and cleanest last-mile transportation solutions in India. The investment is led by Sixth Sense Ventures, along with Reliance New Energy (a wholly-owned subsidiary of Reliance Industries Limited), Xponentia Capital, Accurant International, USA, and Momentum Venture Capital, Singapore.

Commenting on the Monetary Policy Statement, keeping the Repo Rate unchanged, Dr A Sakthivel, President, FIEO said that the RBI has struck a nice balance between growth & inflation and evaluating the two, has not tinkered with the rates. At the same time, extension of the Emergency Credit Linked Guarantee Scheme (ECLGS) by the Hon’ble Finance Minister in the Budget 2022-23 will augment further the flow of credit to the exports sector. The President, FIEO said that RBI also acknowledged the challenges of containers and labour shortage and high freight rate, which had led to revision in the trade growth projection for 2022-23 at 6%. He added that the demand side of Indian exports is extremely encouraging and the export sector is all set to repeat its spectacular performance in the next financial year as well despite logistics constraints. Dr Sakthivel hoped that since the countries globally are now opening up, the logistics issues will be taken care of leading to reduction in the cycle of exports. At the same time, we should look into setting up container manufacturing in our own country to add another feather in our “Atma Nirbhar” strategy particularly as coastal manufacturing in the country is also gaining traction. The FIEO chief said that while the current value of Rupee is providing support to exports, we have to be watchful as recent capital outflows in many emerging economies have resulted in deprecation of their currencies significantly making them much more competitive.