Gurgaon-based hyperlocal delivery ShadowFax Technologies has bought Pickingo, another hyperlocal service that is in the process of shutting down.
Hyperlocal logistics startup Pickingo, run by Gurgaon-based Pickingo Logixpress started operations last December by doing reverse logistics for e-commerce majors Jabong, Snapdeal, Shopclues and Paytm across six cities. It has tie-ups with nearly 300 restaurants, pharmacies and grocery outlets also. The company had 100 employees and 300 field executives, according to a statement released in August 2015 when it raised USD 1.3 million in funding from venture capital firm Orios Venture Partners and Toppr.com co-founder Zishaan Hayath.
As part of the transaction, Shadowfax has on-boarded around 45 employees from the management team of Pickingo and a considerable number of delivery boys that add up to a few hundreds. “At Shadowfax, we are trying to develop competency of completing deliveries in 30 minutes to an hour, and this deal will help us achieve our goals faster,” said Abhishek Bansal, CEO, Shadowfax.
Founded in May 2015 by IIT graduates Abhishek Bansal and Vaibhav Khandelwal, ShadowFax provides restaurants with a technology-driven framework to incorporate features such as automatic rider scheduling, seamless app communication, instant feedback, geo-based tracking, and location-based rider allocation. According to the company’s website, Shadowfax has presence in Delhi-NCR, Gurgaon, Mumbai and Bangalore.
Pickingo has been up for grabs for some time now. In September, Restaurant listings and review firm Zomato Media Pvt Ltd, which operates through Zomato announced a minority stake pickup in Pickingo. However, the deal did not go through.
Shadowfax had secured USD nine million in Series A funding in September this year from Eight Roads Ventures, the investment arm of Fidelity International. In August this year, it raised around INR 1.90 crore in angel funding from Snapdeal’s co-founders Kunal Bahl and Rohit Bansal, Powai Lake Ventures’ Zishaan Hayath and Limeroad co-founder Prashant Malik.
