Flipkart has acquired a strategic minority stake in MapmyIndia, India’s leader in premium quality digital map data, GPS navigation, tracking, location-based apps and GIS solutions, the two companies announced today.
Flipkart’s strategy to transform supply chain through technology is bolstered by this business partnership to license map data and location technologies from MapmyIndia. This will extend a new layer of capability to Flipkart’s existing supply chain and logistics operations, making customer experience timely and hassle free.
With Flipkart’s investment, MapmyIndia’s early financial investors, Nexus Venture Partners and Lightbox Ventures, will exit the company. MapmyIndia will continue to independently serve all consumers and enterprises customers across all industries with its full range of products and solutions.
The objective of this partnership is to deploy Location intelligence capabilities across Flipkart’s logistics network, enabling it to strengthen its first-mile pickup, and last mile delivery operations. In the future, several unique and industry-first services are likely to be introduced, e.g. better Address Verification, real-time Shipment Tracking, Facility Mapping and Theft Minimization via Geo-fencing among many others.
Speaking on the occasion, Binny Bansal, COO and Co-founder, Flipkart, said, “With this strategic investment, we are taking another concrete step toward transforming the supply chain ecosystem in India, making technology and information the driver of our supply chain and logistics solutions. The integration of comprehensive and accurate location data will allow us to deliver an even more personalized and delightful experience to our customers. This partnership is a strategic fit that gives us a sustainable competitive advantage. We maintain our position as the dominant player in the e-commerce space as we continue to invest heavily in scaling our technology and platforms, always ensuring that our customers get maximum value from their association with us.”
Adding to this, Rakesh Verma, Managing Director and Co-founder, MapmyIndia, said, “MapmyIndia’s mission is to make the world better through maps and location technologies. We have seen extremely strong demand for our map and location products and solutions from leading e-commerce players, all automotive OEMs and progressive government agencies, and we remain committed to helping all customers across industries benefit from our maps and location technologies. We are thrilled to welcome India’s largest ecommerce marketplace, Flipkart, as a strategic minority investor, and are excited by their vision for leveraging our maps and location technologies. We look forward to sharing our domain expertise with them and adding new and fresh dimensions to their logistics operations, together transforming ecommerce to benefit more than a billion Indians.”
