Shiprocket bets IPO proceeds on AI as it expands beyond core shipping biz

Shiprocket plans to invest much of its IPO proceeds in AI and emerging businesses as it seeks to offer merchants technology spanning advertising, freight and commerce

Shiprocket plans to funnel much of the proceeds from its initial public offering (IPO) into artificial intelligence (AI), betting the technology can turn the Indian e-commerce (ecom) enablement platform into a broader operating system for merchants.

 

The company wants to let merchants run their businesses through conversational commands rather than multiple software tabs, while using AI internally to cut time spent on data collection and manual tasks.

 

“We are basically trying to bring the AI experience to the merchant,” Saahil Goel, managing director and chief executive officer (MD & CEO) of Shiprocket, told Business Standard.

 

Most of the IPO capital, after debt repayment, will go towards the company's faster-growing emerging business, including technology and sales & marketing, he said. The emerging business has grown to ₹538.7 crore in revenue for financial year 2025-26 (FY26), compared with roughly ₹1,485.4 crore for core business for the same period. The emerging business is growing at about 65 per cent, Goel said.

 

 

Shiprocket will open its IPO on August 12, pricing shares at ₹92 to ₹97 apiece. The issue size has been cut about 30 per cent to ₹1,617 crore, with the fresh issue reduced to ₹885 crore and the offer for sale (OFS) to ₹732 crore. At the upper end of the price band, Shiprocket would be valued at ₹7,056 crore, a roughly 30 per cent decline from its ₹10,000 crore valuation when it last raised capital in December 2024.

 

Lightrock, the largest-selling shareholder, is offloading shares worth ₹272 crore but is expected to realise only about 0.72 times its investment. McKinsey, through AFOS, and Moore Strategic Ventures are also selling below cost, with estimated returns of 0.59 times and 0.67 times, respectively. Cofounders Goel, Gautam Kapoor, and Vishesh Khurana are also selling stakes, about ₹61 crore each for Goel and Kapoor, and ₹20 crore for Khurana. Bertelsmann India Investments, Shiprocket's largest shareholder, has withdrawn from the OFS, and Eternal, formerly Zomato, and Temasek are also not selling.

 

 But industry sources that most of big investors are not exiting and that shows trust in the business.

 

 Goel said Lightrock India is the only fund exiting, a sign, he said, that long-term shareholders believe significant value remains to be unlocked. The gap in investor returns reflects how private and public markets price differently, he said. With 2.14 lakh merchants on the platform and the business growing about 24-25 per cent, more than 80 per cent of the founders' wealth remains tied up in the company.

 

Internally, AI would cut the time employees spend on data collection and mechanical tasks, Goel said, freeing them for decision-making. Shiprocket sees its next opportunity in roughly 20 million “glass door merchants” among India's 60 million retail MSMEs and 40 million kiranas. Its newer products, including advertising, freight and quick commerce (qcom), are gaining traction across merchant categories.

 

Goel said the investments extend Shiprocket's reach without diluting its core focus, calling the company's scale hard to replicate. “It cannot be done with money,” he said. Built over 14 years, Shiprocket now handles about 4-5 per cent of India's ecom market, and data from over 150 million Indian consumers and more than 700 million deliveries gives it an edge in understanding fraud risk and courier performance.

 

Shiprocket had signed a joint venture (JV) with Ultrasafe AI in September 2025 to build foundational AI model, but the agreement lapsed. Goel said India needs its own AI stack, partly because foreign models are designed for workers costing $30,000-50,000 a year in developed markets, versus roughly ₹2-4 lakh in India. As open-source models advanced, Shiprocket shifted focus to applied AI, and has since built its own voice model, trained on its own call-centre data, which is already used internally and will be offered to merchants.

 

The company’s global strategy is to help Indian small businesses sell overseas rather than launching abroad, since artisanal businesses often sell to exporters at 5-10 per cent margins while intermediaries capture more value internationally. It has built cross-border lanes linking foreign postal networks with Customs and freight facilities in India, enabling 7-10-day deliveries. Goel said the company has no plans to launch abroad, since India's digital retail penetration is only about 8 per cent.

 

Shiprocket made several acquisitions in 2021-22. The last three — Pickrr, Shiprocket Omuni, and Swiftly — led to real goodwill writedowns. Goel said the acquisition strategy has since evolved, and that omnichannel and martech, both acquired, are now among its fastest-growing segments.

 

Going public has instilled greater discipline and governance in Shiprocket rather than stifling innovation, Goel said. This comes as the company scales towards ₹2,000 crore in revenue, with its core business being the clear market leader, he added.

 

Shiprocket reported a 24 per cent Y-o-Y increase in operating revenue to ₹2,024 crore in FY26 from ₹1,632 crore in FY25, according to its RHP (red herring prospectus) financial statements. Its consolidated net loss widened to ₹79.25 crore in FY26 from ₹74.45 crore in FY25, a rise of about 6.5-7 per cent Y-o-Y.

 

Operating cash flow was positive at more than ₹50 crore in FY26, versus about ₹1.9 crore the previous year, Goel said. The core business generated ₹186 crore in cash Ebitda (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortisation) and has been profitable since FY22. Its Ebitda margin has risen from about 6 per cent to 12 per cent and cash generation has increased to more than ₹180 crore from about ₹70 crore three years earlier. The net loss largely reflects planned investment in the emerging business, not cash burn, with contribution margins turning positive as products scale, he said. Adjusted Ebitda was about ₹17 crore in FY26 after accounting for ESOP (employee stock option plan) costs.

 

With just 2.14 lakh of India's roughly 60 million businesses digitised on its platform, Goel said Shiprocket has significant room to grow without external funding. Its broader mission, he said, is to digitise India's merchants, giving every shopkeeper, retailer and kirana access to digital infrastructure for payments, advertising, shipping, and deliveries.