SaaS-based cold chain aggregator platform Celcius has raised USD 4.5 million (about Rs 35 crore) in a bridge funding round from a clutch of investors, including Mumbai Angels and Endurance Capital, to expand its operations this year, a release said on Wednesday.
This round is part of the Series A funding that Celcius is aiming to close for USD 1 million in the coming months, the startup said.
The other investors who participated in the bridge funding round include EVAN, Supply Chain Labs, VCats, Keiretsu Forum, Huddle, and others, it said.
The freshly raised capital will be utilised to expand geographically to over 500 cities this year. Apart from this, part of the funds will also go towards growing the tech, sales and operations teams and working on development programmes to aid small-scale and regional transporters across the country, Celcius said.
“The newly acquired funds will allow us to stay on the momentum of scaling up our operations across the country. We plan to expand our reach to over 500 cities and to support the country by transporting Covid-19 vaccines and other essential perishables to remote locations,” said Swarup Bose, founder-CEO, Celcius.
The platform has also recently launched Vahan Vikas Samriddhi Programme, through which it aims to financially support regional transport entrepreneurs and encourage them to venture into the cold chain segment, he said.
“The funds will help us further this initiative,” added Bose.
Celcius had in August last year received USD 5,00,000 in a seed fund round from Mumbai Angels Network, along with Huddle, Lumis Partners, Venture Capital and private equity firms MaGEHold, Keiretsu Forum, Eaglewings Ventures Alliance Network (EVAN), and investors from Malaysia, Nigeria, and the US, according to the release.
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These funds were utilised to scale up the company’s operations and diversify the services on its platform by integrating WMS (Warehouse Management System) and TMS (Transportation Management System), it added.
Since its launch in November 2020, Celcius has onboarded 2,500 vehicles, 107 Cold storage, and increased operations in over 150 cities, as per the release.
It has also tied up with financing firms such as Shriram Transport and Finance Company and with OEMs such as Ashok Leyland and Tata.
