Ecom Express expands to Bangladesh, invests Rs 80.6 cr in Paperfly

Logistics solutions provider Ecom Express on Tuesday said it has invested USD 11 million (about Rs 80.6 crore) in Bangladesh's largest third-party e-commerce logistics (3PL) firm, Paperfly.

Through this investment, Ecom Express is foraying into the Bangladesh market, marking its maiden venture outside India, a statement said.

"With more than 167 million inhabitants and over 90 million internet users, the e-commerce industry in Bangladesh is emerging and has become one of the fastest growing markets in the region. The increasing per-capita disposable income has fueled higher consumption from expanding middle classes," it added.

Founded in 2016 by Shahriar Hasan, Md Razibul Islam, Rahath Ahmed and Shamsuddin Ahmed, Paperfly is the first homegrown technology-enabled logistics company in Bangladesh.

"The investments will be used by Paperfly towards transformation of logistics through intelligence driven automations and data sciences that would enable the company to meet the fast-growing demand for quality e-commerce logistics services in Bangladesh," the statement said.

This will further accelerate the company's implementation of advanced supply chain and logistics processes, agile solutions in delivery and warehouse management, and other operational facets in the logistics and supply chain, it added.

TA Krishnan, CEO and co-founder of Ecom Express, said the company sees a lot of growth opportunities in adjacent markets and the current investment is one of the many things in the pipeline.

"We looked at multiple aspects before identifying Bangladesh for our first international venture. The market draws parallel with India in terms of growth and demography and we want to leverage our experience and domain expertise to enable high scalability growth and build a strategic backbone of e-commerce logistics in Bangladesh," he added.