Celcius aims to expand to 9 metros, including Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Lucknow, Jaipur, Gwalior and Amritsar, with 200 riders, within 3 months of the launch.
The brand has currently tied up with Zomato and is the partner of choice for temperature-controlled deliveries across varies cities for their intercity orders. In the long run, Celcius also aims to cater to fruits and vegetable suppliers, direct-to-home services, pharma products and intermediary distributors, vaccine distributors as well as cloud kitchens, canned food companies, dairy and meat distributors, among others, who would need temperature-controlled deliveries to be made for quantities ranging from 500 gms to 5 Kgs.
Celcius Logistics is the first-of-its-kind cold-chain online marketplace that offers an integrated smart platform for all stakeholders to explore, book, monitor and process their cold supply chain needs, with utmost efficiency and transparency. With their hyperlocal service, Celcius is the first to ensure perfect quality of materials being transported through real-time tracking of temperature at every point.
Speaking about their efforts to strengthening the last mile delivery of cold supply chain, Swarup Bose, Founder and CEO, Celcius Logistics, said, “India currently incurs food losses worth about USD 14bn, due inefficiencies in cold supply chain, especially last mile deliveries. These include lapses in maintaining optimum temperatures, using non refrigerated vehicles for transit for shorter distances, lack of tracking and tracing technology, and handling of products by untrained drivers in the final leg of a cold supply chain. This is especially true for smaller quantities/volumes which are transported using thermocol/foil wraps, or make shift ice boxes that do more damage than preserve the quality of the product being transported. Celcius’s Hyper local service is designed to deploy tech-first solutions to reduce the massive in-transit wastage of perishables caused by cold chain malpractices and inefficiencies, while ensuring speed, quality and agility to transport volumes ranging 500 gms to 5 kg through bike riders and larger reefer trucks for bigger volumes. We aim to transform the temperature-controlled transport and delivery spectrum with integrated, tech enabled solutions which ensure superior quality of products delivered anywhere within a maximum time frame of 18 hours!”
The company has already secured contract for distribution from clients like Zomato, and a host of other cloud kitchens and local businesses who get instant access to all the asset inventory via Celcius’s hyper local delivery platform. With the current forecast, the company aims to grow from 200 riders in 3 months to 500 riders in year, clocking in a revenue of Rs 15-18 Crore in the first year of the launch.
Earlier this year, Celcius launched its last mile delivery platform that provides a customized tech platform for clients seeking an efficient and robust last mile cold chain service. With the Hyper Local service, Celcius will be for the first time, deploying on ground bike riders to deliver temperature sensitive cargo across the country, with a guaranteed quality assurance and within record time.
Celcius is India first and only SaaS marketplace for the cold supply chain. It is the only aggregator platform in India, which offers solutions for both Reefer logistics and cold storage warehousing. Celcius’ simple yet unique solution can be credited to its inception as a response to the COVID-19 pandemic in India. The unprecedented nationwide lockdown in March 2020 exposed the shortcomings of the existing cold chain in India.
Celcius’ technology driven approach ensures that there is accountability from the booking to the delivery of the shipment. The Web and App based platform verifies shippers and transporters before listing them. The platform centralizes the booking and helps collate all the data in a single system.
During the transit period, customers can track both the thermal conditions and location of the shipment LIVE. Apart from this, Celcius also offers a multi-temperature loading option, multi-location pickup and drop facility and offers the convenience of a ratings system for transporters and shippers and an online bidding system for negotiations.
In line with its larger vision to integrate smart tech tools to bring transparency and seamless efficiency across cold supply chain networks, Celcius has been steady expanding its services and reach across the country, and has grown at a significant rate since the two years of its inception.
With 3500+ vehicles, and 100+ Cold storages, Celcius today boasts of an esteemed list of clienteles, including Zepto, Zomata, Maersk, Prabhat Dairy, Subway, Rebel Foods, Vadilal, Dominos, Kaventers, Godrej Agrovet, and Zydus Pharma, to name the few. They have transported over 75000 tons of perishable cargo for sectors like dairy, fresh agricultural produce, pharma, fruits, seafood and vaccines across 350 cities in India. The startup has also ventured across the border to import fruits from Afghanistan and to export seafood outside India.
Additionally, in two years, Celcius has closed a total of USD 7.5 Million in funding from various sources. The brand has successfully utilized the funds to scale up its operations and diversify the services on its platform by integrating WMS (Warehouse Management System) and TMS (Transportation Management System). Registering a growth of 20X in the past year, Celcius aims to now raise a Series A round of USD 10 Mn in the coming months. The brand has also tied up with finance institutions like Shriram Transport and Finance Company and with OEMs like Ashok Leyland and Tata. Their future plans include upgrading their platform with Warehouse Management Systems (WMS) and Transportation Management Systems (TMS), introducing an in-depth cold storage warehousing solution.
