Varuna Group keen to invest Rs 500 crore to set up Grade A+ warehousing facilities across India

A Gurgaon-based Varuna Group is looking to invest about Rs 500 crore for setting up 30 Grade A+ warehousing facilities across the country in the next five years. At present, the company has 25 Grade A+ facilities across 28 locations in India, with 1.2 million sqft of warehousing space. It has presence at over 900 locations, including its offices, warehouses and loading-unloading points.

While the company has its multi-user facilities spread across over five lakh sqft space with the largest one at Rajpura in Punjab, the rest is used for dedicated storage solutions and value-added services like labeling, reverse logistics and refurbishing, via pay-per-use model. These facilities can handle loading and unloading of around 500 trucks per day.

Vivek Juneja, Founder and Managing Director, Varuna Group, said being an early adopter of technology in the domestic logistics space, including the use of GPS devices for vehicle tracking, the company is also looking to add 300 trucks every year from the next fiscal in its current fleet of over 1,800 trucks. “We will be building 30 Grade A+ warehousing facilities in the next five years. As each facility is expected to come up at a cost of around Rs 50 crore, this will entail a total investment of around Rs 1,500 crore,” he said. “Varuna Group will invest around Rs 15 crore in each facility, while the rest around Rs 35 crore per facility will come from the developers.”

The company is looking at the hybrid model wherein both the developer and the company will invest. In all, the company will invest around Rs 500 crore in setting up these 30 warehousing units. The Varuna Group caters mainly to segments such as tyres, in which the company provides and end-to-end services, fast-moving consumer goods, pharma, lubes, food and beverage, and other industrial products among others.

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“Currently, the customer doesn’t get flexible warehousing space in India. And here, we are offering flexible warehousing space and flexible trucking in between these warehouses,” Juneja said. “The group’s revenue grew 15% to Rs 750 crore in the fiscal year ended March 2021 despite the pandemic. The topline revenue is expected to grow 10% in the current year on account of the second wave of the pandemic.”

Juneja said business from tyre clients accounts for 25%, while the rest 75% comes from clients. “Last year, people were only scared and were sitting at home but this time, people got so scared and saved money for bad times, hence the demand is less.”