Meet the new Bansal making waves in Indian e-commerce

Abhishek Bansal's six-month-old Shadowfax is out to deliver results fast, reports Tech in Asia

Abhishek Bansal’s (24) business-to-business (B2B) hyperlocal logistics start-up Shadowfax recently raised $8.5 million in series A funding, from Fidelity International’s investment arm Eight Roads Ventures. This happened less than a month after the Gurgaon-based company secured angel funding from Snapdeal co- founders Kunal Bahl and Rohit Bansal, Zishaan Hayath of Powai Lake Ventures, and Prashant Malik of Limeroad.

Abhishek had, along with his college mate Vaibhav Khandelwal, launched Shadowfax only in May this year. Talking to Tech in Asia over a cup of hot coffee at Starbucks in a Mumbai suburb, Bansal spoke about how he is living his “life on the edge,” as an entrepreneur.
 

The surname Bansal, which belongs to the Bania trading community in India, suggests that his entrepreneurial streak is not serendipity in action. Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal of Flipkart, Rohit Bansal of Snapdeal, Mukesh Bansal who founded Myntra – all of them belong to this traditional trading sect of the country.
 

Shadowfax, named after the The Lord of the Rings’s horse who can interpret human language, is looking at ‘uberization of delivery boys,’ according to Abhishek. Its value proposition is to cut costs of merchants on the logistics front. “We tell our clients ‘you don’t have to hire delivery persons for your company.’ We can provide them that,” says Abhishek.

Many are trying to provide this service, but few succeed in scaling up fast.
 

Earlier this month, Shadowfax acquired the entire team of Pickingo, a smaller rival which was operating in the same sector but had to close down. 

This is an excerpt from Tech in Asia. You can read the full article here.