In 2015, India’s startup ecosystem was buzzing with food delivery dreams. Money was flowing, new startups were launching every month, and everyone believed logistics was easy to crack. It wasn’t.
That same year, two IIT-Delhi graduates—Abhishek Bansal and Vaibhav Khandelwal —started a company with just INR 2 crore. They called it Shadowfax . There was no grand vision of building India’s largest logistics company. The idea was simple: deliver food for restaurants.
At the time, Shadowfax wasn’t even a consumer brand. It didn’t take orders or build apps for customers. It operated quietly in the background, working as a logistics partner for restaurants. And it wasn’t alone. There were 33 companies doing exactly the same thing.
Most of them don’t exist today.
Food delivery logistics was unforgiving. Margins were thin, delivery volumes were unpredictable, and cash burn was relentless. Some startups raised aggressively, scaled too fast, and collapsed just as quickly. Others simply ran out of money before they could pivot.
Shadowfax came dangerously close.
What saved the company was an early, uncomfortable realization: food delivery alone would never build a sustainable business. The founders understood that survival mattered more than sticking to the original plan.
While competitors stayed locked into one category, Shadowfax began diversifying within months. Groceries were added. Then e-commerce. Then pharma. Slowly, the company started building capabilities that went far beyond food.
Unlike logistics players such as Delhivery or Ecom Express that began with forward e-commerce deliveries, Shadowfax entered the market through reverse logistics. Returns were a massive pain point for e-commerce companies, and few logistics startups wanted to deal with that complexity.
Shadowfax leaned into it.
Managing reverse logistics using a crowdsourced delivery model was chaotic. Riders were freelancers. Demand fluctuated wildly. There was zero room for error. A missed pickup or delayed delivery could mean lost clients.
The system was messy. Operationally brutal. Constantly breaking.
But it worked.
By solving the hardest problems early, Shadowfax quietly built deep operational muscle. Each year, its different verticals—food, grocery, e-commerce, and pharma—kept doubling. While others shut down, Shadowfax learned how to survive.
From Bengaluru, Shadowfax scaled without noise. It didn’t chase headlines. It didn’t burn money to look big. Instead, it focused on execution—one city, one category, one problem at a time.
What started with food packets expanded into smartphones, televisions, and eventually large items like king-size beds. The company’s logistics network became one of the most complex last-mile systems in the country, powered by thousands of delivery partners and technology built in-house.
Over time, the ambition grew.
Shadowfax no longer wanted to be “just” a last-mile player. Its mission evolved into becoming a full-stack logistics company—handling shipments from the first mile to the final doorstep, across cities and categories.
Nearly a decade after starting with INR 2 crore, Shadowfax is now preparing to go public. The company is planning an IPO of around INR 1,907 crore in January 2026, with an estimated valuation of approximately INR 7,168 crore.
It operates across India and serves some of the country’s largest marketplaces and businesses. Early investors who backed the company during its uncertain years are now set to see their patience rewarded.
What makes Shadowfax’s story stand out isn’t just the numbers. It’s the way the company survived when nearly everyone else failed.
Shadowfax’s journey offers a powerful lesson for Indian entrepreneurs: success doesn’t come from being the loudest or the fastest. It comes from adapting faster than the market can destroy you.
The founders didn’t fall in love with a single idea. They fell in love with solving problems. They diversified early, picked hard challenges instead of easy wins, and prioritized survival over vanity metrics.
In India’s startup ecosystem—where capital cycles change quickly and competition is brutal—this mindset matters more than ever.
Survival comes first.
Scale comes later.
That’s how INR 2 crore quietly turns into a INR 7,000+ crore company.
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