With most people preferring to purchase groceries online, particularly since the pandemic outbreak, both industry stalwarts and new newcomers are considering a new vertical – rapid commerce, or q-commerce.
According to Redseer, quick commerce is valued at $0.3B in CY2021 and is predicted to expand 10-15x over the next five years, reaching $5B by 2025.
Now, Amsterdam headquartered Borzo, a global same-day intra-city delivery service provider, has acquired NOW, an India-based last-mile delivery startup at an undisclosed amount. The acquisition, according to the company, is in keeping with Borzo’s desire to enhance its position in the region and give more customised delivery alternatives to its clients.
Borzo’s first acquisition in India
Following the acquisition, NOW will remain an independent brand while benefiting from Borzo’s knowledge and activities in ten countries. Vivek Pandey and Bharat Khandelwal founded the company in 2016, and have decades of relevant expertise working at Flipkart, Times Internet, and Nelson, a transport packaging company. The present management team will continue to oversee the company, and the company expects to achieve 5M deliveries by 2022.
With its fleet of over 1500 riders, NOW is 2 million orders plus per year for KFC, Pizza Hut, Apollo Pharmacies, Amazon, and many more companies. The company operates in eight locations and enables restaurant and drugstore chains, aggregators, ecommerce, and direct-to-consumer (D2C) brands to promptly deliver orders to their own customers. NOW offers transparent upfront pricing at the moment of order placement, as well as real-time delivery tracking for clients and recipients.
“NOW has created an amazing product offering that clearly appeals to business customers. They’ve developed a method for enlisting hyperlocal couriers, allowing for lightning-fast delivery with reliable ETAs “, according to Aleks Shamis, co-founder and Deputy CEO of Borzo. “This is consistent with our present strategy of acquiring complementary and viable businesses around the world in order to broaden our reach and provide more options to our own customers.”
“Both NOW and Borzo use smart algorithms and carefully manage operations to give excellent delivery services,” says Vivek Pandey, co-founder and CEO of NOW. “Borzo has established a major footprint in the region, and we are pleased to collaborate; combining forces will allow us to rapidly grow up in a market where demand for hyperlocal delivery is measured in millions of dollars per day.”
Borzo: Same day delivery service rebranded
Founded in Russia in 2012 as WeFast by Aleks Shamis, Dmitry Zubkov and Mike Alexandrovski, the startup was rebranded to Borzo in August 2021.
Borzo provides same-day intra city delivery via any route and mode of transportation, regardless of weight or size. Customers only need to request delivery on the Borzo website, mobile app, or API, and a trusted courier will pick up and deliver the needed goods. Borzo delivered 10M packages worldwide in the third quarter of 2021.
Borzo offers services in Brazil, India, Indonesia, Korea, Malaysia, Mexico, the Philippines, Russia, Turkey, and Vietnam. Borzo has raised $60M so far in venture funding from Mubadala, Flashpoint, AddVenture, and VNV Global, among others.
