New Delhi, Aug. 6 -- Global investment firms Lightrock and Moore Strategic Ventures will book a loss by selling their entire stake in Shiprocket Ltd while Bertelsmann India Investments has dropped its plan to trim its holdings as the Indian logistics company is going public at a valuation that will push it out of the unicorn club.
Gurugram-based Shiprocket has fixed a price band of Rs 92-97 per share for its IPO, implying a post-issue valuation of Rs 7,057 crore ($742 million) at the upper end and a pre-IPO valuation of Rs 6,171 crore. This is significantly below the $1.2-1.3 billion (around Rs 9,500-10,000 crore then) post-money valuation at which Shiprocket became a unicorn in 2022.
The company has also reduced the size of its IPO to Rs 1,617 crore from the Rs 2,342 crore proposed in its updated draft red herring prospectus (DRHP). The fresh issue has been cut to Rs 886 crore from Rs 1,100 crore, while the offer for sale (OFS) has been trimmed to Rs 732 crore from Rs 1,242 crore.
"It (reduction in size) is somewhere to do with markets and valuation as well. They were expecting a higher valuation and they feel that the company is worth more than what they are doing right now. They believe there is a lot of potential going forward," a person aware of the development told VCCircle.
Among the financial investors, Lightrock will make a complete exit by selling its stake for about Rs 272 crore. This implies a loss of about 27% on its investment as it had pumped around Rs 375 crore into Shiprocket across funding rounds in 2021 and 2022. Lightrock owns a 4.4% stake in the company.
Moore Strategic Ventures, the venture investment arm of billionaire hedge fund manager Louis M. Bacon, will also fully exit through the IPO by selling its stake for Rs 51.35 crore. The firm had invested around Rs 76 crore in 2021 and 2022 and will book a loss of about 32%, back-of-the-envelope calculations.
The revised valuation also leaves several investors that entered during Shiprocket's late-stage funding rounds sitting on paper losses. These include Zomato parent Eternal, Singapore's Temasek, Koch Inc's VC arm KDT Ventures, US-based PayPal, Japan's MUFG Bank and Indian fintech company Razorpay, all of whom invested at valuations above the IPO pricing. Eternal owns 6.85% in Shiprocket, Temasek owns 5.29%, KDT 5.49%, PayPal 1.67% and MUFG 2.2%, according to the IPO documents.
Meanwhile, Shiprocket's early-stage venture capital backed continue to stand to make healthy returns. Tribe Capital has retained its planned offer for sale of around Rs 120 crore, while 500 Global has cut its portion to Rs 16.3 crore from Rs 27 crore and March Capital will sell shares worth Rs 55.5 crore versus Rs 95 crore planned earlier. Tribe Capital, which owns 14.14% of the company via two funds, will generate a 7.7x multiple on invested capital while 500 Global will generate multibagger returns on its investments.
March Capital will likely record a little more than 2x multiple on invested capital. The firm owns a 4.5% stake in the company that's worth Rs 277.6 crore at the upper end of the price band.
One notable change from the draft offer document is the withdrawal of Bertelsmann India Investments from the offer-for-sale. The VC firm had initially planned to sell shares worth around Rs 85 crore but has now dropped the stake sale plan, though it continues to sit on substantial unrealised gains after backing Shiprocket in its early years. Bertelsmann is the company's biggest shareholder with a 21.32% stake.
Founded in 2017 by Saahil Goel, Gautam Kapoor and Vishesh Khurana, Shiprocket provides logistics and e-commerce enablement solutions to small and medium businesses, direct-to-consumer brands and social commerce sellers. The company crossed the unicorn milestone in 2022 after raising capital from investors including Zomato (now Eternal), Temasek and Lightrock.
Despite the lower valuation, Shiprocket's financial performance strengthened in the financial year through March 2026 (FY26) as the company moved closer to profitability ahead of its market debut. Operating revenue rose to Rs 2,273 crore in FY26 from Rs 1,632 crore in the previous financial year, while its net loss narrowed to Rs 95 crore from Rs 111 crore. The company also reported positive EBITDA of Rs 52 crore, compared with Rs 7 crore in FY25.
Published by HT Digital Content Services with permission from VC Circle.