Pune-based e-commerce logistics company, Xpressbees, may get $100 million as an investment by Canada’s Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan Board, one of the largest pension plans in the world, said a recent report by Economic Times.
Citing people privy to the matter, the ET report further said that Ontario Teachers’ Pension board may buy a stake in Xpressbees at about a $1.4 billion valuation. The capital raised would potentially be used for purposes including acquisitions.
Since last year, the Canadian pension fund was targeting investments in India and even opened an office in Mumbai in September of last year.
With this investment, if materialize, The Ontario Teachers’ would join other Canada based pension funds bodies — Canadian public pension funds CPP Investments and Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec (CDPQ).
Ontario’s Teacher’s fellow CPP Investment had invested in Indian companies including Byju’s and Xpressbees’s competitor Delhivery.
Ontario Teachers’ had also in FTX, through its Teacher’s Venture Growth platform, after the collapse of FTX the Canadian pension board wrote-off the entire investment, in the end of last year.
Earlier in April, Xpressbees had raised $40 million in funding from Khazanah Nasional Berhad (Khazanah), the sovereign wealth fund of Malaysia.
Founded by Amitava Saha and Supam Maheshwari, co-founders of SoftBank-backed baby products startup FirstCry. The duo decided to spin off the firm’s logistics unit into a separate entity in 2015. The e-commerce logistics company has also counts Alibaba as its investor along with Investcorp, Norwest Venture Partners, Gaja Capital, SAIF Partners, IDG Ventures India, NEA, Vertex Ventures, and Valiant Capital.