SaaS firm Unicommerce bets big on Shipway to take on rival Shiprocket

The SaaS firm recently acquired remaining 57.24% in Shipway after securing 42.76% in December last year

Unicommerce, an ecommerce enablement software-as-a-service (SaaS) company, has announced complete acquisition of Shipway, a courier aggregation platform, in what it says is a bid to take on rival ecommerce enablement platform Shiprocket.

 

The company announced the acquisition on March 20. Unicommerce had initially secured a 42.76 per cent stake in Shipway on December 17, 2024. And has now acquired the remaining 57.24 per cent.

 

The acquisition will be executed through a preferential issue of equity shares, with Unicommerce issuing over 60 lakh shares, in exchange for Shipway shares held by its promoters and other individual shareholders. The share-swap ratio has been set at 1:8:9.

 

Kapil Makhija, managing director and chief executive officer, predicts a two-horse race between Shipway and Shiprocket. “We expect Shipway and Shiprocket to be the two dominant players in the courier aggregation market in India. Shipway is a big growth driver for us, as we are operating in a ₹4,000 crore large market,” he told Business Standard.

 

According to the company, Shipway has over 35 million annual transactions across the courier aggregation and automation space. It has access to 29,000 pin codes and is integrated with more than 15 courier partners at a pre-negotiated shipping rate.

 

The company added that the acquisition strengthens Unicommerce’s client base with 7,000 businesses and over 10,000 brands.

 

Shipway recorded a revenue of ₹42 crore in 2023-24 (FY24), the company is currently at a ₹70 crore revenue run rate, Unicommerce said.

 

As part of its growth plan, the company is investing in sales and marketing while adding more brands under the Unicommerce fold. “We continue to have a motion on the sales and marketing side to make the outbound engine robust as well as improving the brand recall for Shipway. We also have the profit pool to invest in sales and marketing to drive further growth,” Makhija said.

 

“One of the key levers for our growth is the cross-sell opportunity. Within the 7,000 client base, there’s only a 5 per cent overlap where we will try cross-selling and upselling and get new brands and sellers. We will continue to see a meaningful improvement in terms of the number of clients that we can handle as a combined entity,” Makhija added.

 

He further said that through Shipway, the company is able to reduce logistics costs by 10 per cent, lower the return to origin cost by at least 30 per cent, optimise order processing by 50 per cent, and bring down customer support queries by about 80 per cent.