Sahil Barua and Mohit Tandon, former Bain consultants, co-founded Delhivery in 2011 to tackle the chaos of e-commerce logistics in a nascent digital India. From a hyperlocal courier in Delhi, the company has evolved into a $2.85 billion unicorn serving 18,500+ pin codes with end-to-end supply chain solutions, reporting Rs 8,932 crore in FY25 revenue and a first full-year profit of Rs 162 crore, amid a logistics sector poised for 10-12% CAGR driven by e-commerce’s $200 billion projection by 2030.

Consulting Insights: Barua and Tandon’s Path to Logistics

Sahil Barua, born December 25, 1984, in Ahmedabad, grew up in a family valuing innovation and education. He earned a B.Tech in mechanical engineering from NIT Karnataka and an MBA from IIM Bangalore, where he graduated as an all-around gold medalist. An exchange program at the University of Michigan sparked his interest in jazz saxophone, a hobby he self-taught. Barua interned at the University of Maryland’s CALCE Labs in 2005 before joining Stayglad in Bengaluru in 2007. By 2008, he was an associate consultant at Bain & Company, analyzing India’s untapped e-commerce potential.

Mohit Tandon, a fellow Bain colleague, shared Barua’s vision for scalable logistics. With a background in operations and strategy, Tandon’s expertise complemented Barua’s engineering mindset. “We saw e-commerce exploding but supply chains crumbling—our Bain days showed the math added up,” Barua recounted in a 2022 Financial Express profile. Intrigued by the sector’s scale, they partnered with Bhavesh Manglani, Suraj Saharan, and Kapil Bharati to launch Delhivery, initially as SSN Logistics Ltd in May 2011, focusing on hyperlocal express delivery for food and parcels in Gurgaon.

Founding Delhivery: Hyperlocal to Hypergrowth

Delhivery started in a Delhi apartment, signing its first e-commerce client, Urban Touch, in June 2011. The founders shifted from food delivery to parcels as online retail surged, building an asset-light model with leased warehouses and a nationwide network. By 2012, it expanded to express parcels, warehousing, and freight, leveraging technology for real-time tracking and route optimization.

Barua became CEO, steering operations, while Tandon, as Chief Strategy Officer, drove expansions and partnerships. Early challenges included fragmented infrastructure, but their Bain-honed strategies—data-driven routing and vendor ecosystems—fueled growth. “We weren’t just delivering; we were engineering India’s supply chain,” Tandon noted in a 2024 ET interview. By 2015, Delhivery served major clients like Flipkart and Amazon, processing millions of shipments.

Funding Milestones and Valuation Surge

Delhivery raised $1.25 billion across 12 rounds from 41 investors, including SoftBank, Carlyle Group, Tiger Global, and Fidelity. Key infusions: $413 million Series F in March 2019 from SoftBank, minting it a unicorn at $1.5 billion; $277 million in May 2021 from Fidelity, valuing it at $3 billion; and $98.8 million in December 2021. The May 2022 IPO raised Rs 5,235 crore at Rs 487 per share, listing on BSE/NSE and valuing it at Rs 19,460 crore ($2.3 billion).

By 2025, the valuation stabilized at $2.85 billion (Rs 23,943 crore), with shares at Rs 322. Barua’s net worth stands at Rs 338 crore, reflecting his 1-2% stake.

Delhivery Funding Timeline

Grok can make mistakes. Always check original sources.

Source: Tracxn and Crunchbase cited in Business Standard and ET.

Financial Resilience and Strategic Expansions

Delhivery’s FY25 revenue grew 10% to Rs 8,932 crore from Rs 8,141 crore in FY24, with express parcels (60%) at Rs 5,359 crore (up 9.7%). Q4 FY25 saw Rs 2,303 crore revenue (6% YoY) and Rs 72 crore profit. Full-year PAT turned positive at Rs 162 crore, aided by automation and cost controls, though margins dipped in express to 16.2% from 18.4%.

Expansions include a Lucknow hub in July 2025 for jobs and local business, acquisitions like Spoton Logistics (2021) and Ecom Express (April 2025) for rural reach, and Aramex India for document delivery. The company sponsors RCB in IPL 2024-2025. With 66,000 employees and 18,500 pin codes covered, it delivered 1,696k tonnes in FY25.

Delhivery Revenue Breakdown (FY25)

Segment	Revenue (Rs Crore)	% Growth YoY
Express Parcels	5,359	9.7
Supply Chain	2,200	12
Freight	1,373	10
Total	8,932	10

Source: Annual Report FY25 and Entrackr.

Impact and Philanthropy: Beyond Deliveries

Delhivery matters by enabling e-commerce for SMEs, creating 66,000 jobs, and optimizing supply chains to reduce emissions via EV fleets. Barua funds scholarships for delivery staff children—one recipient now engineers at Delhivery. “That’s my greatest ROI,” he told Leader Biography in 2025. Tandon focuses on tech for rural inclusion.

Challenges like pricing pressure and competition from Blue Dart persist, but the founders’ vision endures.

Future Outlook: Scaling for a Connected India

With edtech tie-ins? Wait, no—logistics focus, but expansions into EV logistics and international via Ecom Express set Rs 10,000 crore FY26 target. Barua and Tandon’s journey—from Bain desks to billion-dollar boardrooms—inspires bootstrapped founders. As Barua said in a 2025 StartupTalky piece, “We built for India’s digital backbone.” Delhivery’s deliveries keep the economy moving.