Mumbai: Clearstone Venture and equity investor Rakesh Jhunjhunwala have together invested Rs 25 crore in express courier company Elbee Express.

Elbee plans to double its network of service locations in the next 4-5 months and equip the business with better technology with an investment of Rs200 crore over the next 4-5 months.

The first phase of expansion would require an investment of Rs 50 crore. While Clearstone and Jhunjhunwala have brought in Rs 25 crore, the rest would come from the promoter.

Nikhil Shah, executive director of Elbee Express said, “We plan to expand our presence to 250 cities from the current 132 in the next 4-5 months and take our network to 15,200 locations, also reaching out to tier-2 and tier-3 cities, as we see good growth in those regions.”

Notably, Elbee had entered into a tie-up with Bharti Airtel last year to set up a customised end-to-end sales force automation solution for pick-up and delivery. It is currently using 400 units and plans to treble the number of units as part of phase-one expansion, too.

Both Jhunjhunwala and Clearstone Ventures are keen to invest in the second series as well. The second phase would focus on diversification of products and services.

Rahul Khanna, director, Clearstone, who will also join Elbee’s board of directors said, “Logistics sector is growing fast in India and we will keep investing till we see an opportunity to grow.”

Elbee Express is an avatar of family-owned Elbee Service, which had fallen into bad times and was shut down some years ago.

Nikhil Shah revived the business under a brand licensing agreement with Elbee Service. His father Sandip Shah, who was the chairman and managing director of the earlier company, is now an independent advisor to Elbee Express.

Source : Dna