Swift Raises $2.2M in pre-Series A Funding Led by Kalaari Capital

By sadhna basangar

Posted on July 26, 2021

Bengaluru, July 26, 2021: Internet commerce enabler Swift has raised $2.2M in Pre-Series A funding led by Kalaari Capital with participation from existing investors FirstCheque, Indian Angel Network, and other angel investors.

Founded in 2019 by three friends from BITS Pilani — Shyam Kalita (Ex-Pitney Bowes, Ex-Zinnov), Prayas Mittal (ex-Flipkart, ex-Urban Ladder), and Debanshu Sinha (ex-Goldman Sachs, ex-Citi); Swift’s commerce platform simplifies online shopping for millions of consumers by helping SMEs, D2C and omnichannel brands run their internet commerce ventures without any hassle.

The funds from this round will be used to scale engineering efforts and simplify complex business workflows across checkout, payments, and fulfillment. Swift believes in realizing efficiencies for its sellers through intuitive design, self-serve automation, and data-driven intelligent systems.

“The internet commerce infrastructure in India has been built to serve large marketplaces making it impossible for smaller brands to compete with them. This is clearly visible in the small proportion of online orders placed via D2C storefronts vis-a-vis marketplaces” said Shyam Kalita, co-founder at Swift. Shyam firmly believes that ‘this disparity comes from problems rooted in code and not business’. “Our checkout product helps brands interact seamlessly with customers by providing a unified one-tap layer for marketing, cart management, and payments. Swift’s flagship fulfillment product, on the other hand, helps sellers manage, process, and deliver better. Put together, our platform can power the growth of India’s internet economy” he added.

Swift’s internet commerce stack is designed to serve D2C brands, drop shippers, small businesses, and Omnichannel brands equally well. The recently launched ‘Swift Checkout’ product helps sellers increase order volume by drastically reducing cart abandonments, while their ‘Fulfill with Swift’ product combines OMS, WMS, Shipping, and Reconciliation all in one place. With their intelligent routing and RTO management engines, orders are fulfilled faster, cheaper, and better.

Prayas Mittal, co-founder, Swift, said, “Competing with marketplaces like Amazon and Flipkart, without the infrastructure to enable commerce is akin to running a mule in a horses’ race. At Swift, we have built a one-stop solution that enables sellers to focus on their core business while our infrastructure manages everything around it – cart conversions, payments, fulfillment, and returns reconciliation. There is no doubt that the next decade of eCommerce in India belongs to D2C brands and Swift looks to power that transformation”.

Kiran Vasireddy, a Partner, Kalaari Capital, added, “The D2C ecosystem and vertical e-commerce in India have been growing rapidly in the last few years. We believe building solutions that cater to online brands and SMEs, which will help them to compete with large horizontal e-commerce players, will be a large opportunity going forward. Swift is building a full-stack e-commerce enablement platform that brands, SMEs, and e-commerce platforms are finding value in, and we are impressed by the team’s vision and execution”

The D2C space in India is expected to become a $100 bn market by 2025 while internet spending is estimated to grow at over 39% CAGR. With the industry at the cusp of monumental growth, Swift is perfectly positioned to help grow India’s internet economy.

Swift Raises $2.2M in pre-Series A Funding Led by Kalaari Capital