In FY24, ElasticRun’s revenue almost halved, falling 48.6% to Rs 2,434 crore ($254 million) from Rs 4,755 crore a year earlier, as per regulatory filings reported by Entrackr. For most companies that would read as a crisis. For this Pune-based rural commerce unicorn, the shrinkage was the strategy.
Even so, the paper value took a hit anyway: HSBC marked ElasticRun down to $800 million in June 2024, roughly half the $1.5 billion the company was worth when SoftBank and Goldman Sachs anointed it a unicorn in February 2022. A company can choose to get smaller on its own terms and still not convince the market it was the right call.
Quick facts
| Company | ElasticRun (Elastic Marketplace Technology Pvt Ltd) |
| Founded | 2016, Pune |
| Founder(s) | Sandeep Deshmukh (CEO), Shitiz Bansal (CTO), Saurabh Nigam (COO) |
| Businesses | Asset-light B2B FMCG distribution to rural kirana stores; logistics-as-a-service for brands |
| Latest FY revenue | Rs 2,653 crore, up 9% year-on-year (FY25, ended March 2025) |
| Latest FY profit/loss | Net loss Rs 145 crore (FY25), narrowed from Rs 360 crore in FY24 |
| Listed | Private — no IPO announced as of September 2026 |
| Market value / last valuation | $1.5 billion (February 2022, Series E); marked down to $800 million by HSBC (June 2024, reported) |
| Key shareholders / CEO | CEO Sandeep Deshmukh; lead backers SoftBank Vision Fund 2, Goldman Sachs Asset Management, Prosus Ventures |
What they do
ElasticRun runs a B2B commerce and logistics network that connects FMCG brands to kirana stores in India’s small towns and villages — the retail layer that traditional urban-first e-commerce and quick commerce rarely reach economically. Brands list their catalogues on ElasticRun’s platform; kirana owners order through a mobile app; and the company fulfils those orders through a network it does not fully own — leased and partner warehouses, contracted delivery riders and part-time local manpower — rather than a fleet and warehouse footprint built and held on its own balance sheet.
The origin
Sandeep Deshmukh grew up in a farming family in Pimpalgaon Raja, a village in Maharashtra, before working at Apple’s iCloud engineering team in Cupertino and then joining Amazon India as one of its early employees, where he helped build the company’s last-mile delivery operations. Nearing five years at Amazon, he kept running into the same gap: “There was no fulfilment ecosystem in India, especially deep across the hinterland,” as he has put it. Rural India had demand and it had retail — hundreds of thousands of kirana stores — but no digitised, efficient way for FMCG brands to reach them without the enormous fixed cost of owning warehouses and trucks in every district.
In 2016, Deshmukh left Amazon and co-founded ElasticRun with Shitiz Bansal and Saurabh Nigam, the latter bringing years of logistics experience from DHL. Their insight was not to build the missing infrastructure but to aggregate what already existed and sat idle: spare warehouse space, underused trucks, and available local manpower. As Deshmukh has described the economics, “the biggest cost is not the cost of delivery of the service, but the cost and underutilisation of the assets” — and eliminating that underutilisation, rather than owning more assets, became the company’s core bet.
The struggle years
ElasticRun’s first version of the business was not rural FMCG distribution at all. It began by running last-mile delivery for Amazon in Maharashtra, using the model to prove out its crowdsourced logistics network before turning it toward brands and kirana stores. That early pivot from being an Amazon delivery contractor to an independent B2B commerce platform was the company’s first reinvention, well before the unicorn round arrived.
The sharper stumble came later and cost more. Around mid-2022, flush with Series E capital, ElasticRun tried to extend its model into cities, piloting an urban quick-commerce and dark-store push in markets including Bhopal, Indore and Delhi. By April 2023, it had wound the urban pilot down. Management said the shift in market conditions meant competing in cities would have required cash burn and capital expenditure the company was unwilling to commit, and the retreat came with layoffs, though the company said it absorbed a large share of the affected staff into its core rural operations rather than letting all of them go. The bet on urban expansion, in other words, did not survive contact with its own capital discipline.
The turning point
The event that changed ElasticRun’s trajectory was not a product launch or a funding round — it was the first wave of COVID-19. Through April and May 2020, brands that had never seriously chased the rural market suddenly needed it, as urban supply chains seized up and demand shifted toward smaller towns and villages. ElasticRun rode that shift directly into its books: revenue for the year ended March 2021 more than doubled to Rs 1,087 crore, up from Rs 510 crore the year before, a jump of roughly 113%, according to Entrackr’s reporting on the company’s FY21 filings. That single year of pandemic-driven demand is what took ElasticRun from a mid-sized logistics platform to a business large enough to attract the marquee investors who would make it a unicorn eighteen months later.
The money behind it
ElasticRun has raised a total of $462 million across six priced rounds since 2016, according to Multiples.vc’s funding tracker. The shape of that capital shows how quickly its story changed once the pandemic tailwind hit:
- Seed — $2 million (2016) from Kalaari Capital and Norwest Venture Partners, the company’s first institutional backers.
- Series A — $5 million (2017).
- Series B — $8.5 million (2018), valuing the company at roughly $65 million.
- Series C — $40 million (2019), led by Prosus Ventures, which became a repeat backer through every subsequent round.
- Series D — $75 million (29 April 2021), co-led by Avataar Ventures and Prosus Ventures with Kalaari Capital participating, valuing ElasticRun at $400 million as the pandemic demand surge was already underway (KrAsia).
- Series E — $330 million (7 February 2022), led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2 and Goldman Sachs Asset Management, with Chimera Investment, Prosus Ventures and InnoVen Capital also participating — the round that made ElasticRun a unicorn at a reported $1.5 billion valuation (Forbes; TechCrunch).
That valuation has since been contested rather than confirmed. HSBC’s June 2024 markdown to $800 million — cited by Outlook Business and Indian Startup News, alongside similar cuts to other Indian startups’ book values that quarter — was explicitly linked to ElasticRun’s widening FY23 loss of Rs 618 crore. No new priced round has been reported since Series E, so $1.5 billion (2022, as raised) and $800 million (2024, as marked by an investor) are the two figures on record; neither is a confirmed current valuation.
How it makes money
ElasticRun earns primarily by buying FMCG goods from brands and reselling them to kirana stores — a trading-goods model — alongside a smaller, separate fee-based logistics business:
- Trading-goods margin: the company sources branded FMCG products and resells them to retailers, booking the difference as trading income; in FY23 this line was Rs 4,383 crore, about 92% of gross merchandise value (Entrackr).
- Logistics/services fees: brands and D2C companies pay ElasticRun directly for warehousing, fulfilment and delivery, without the goods passing through its own inventory; this line grew even as trading income shrank.
- Where the margin sits: trading FMCG goods is a thin-margin business by nature — Entrackr calculated that in FY23 ElasticRun “spent Rs 1.15 to earn a rupee” of revenue — while the services line carries a materially better margin because it is a fee, not a resale.
- The part people get wrong: ElasticRun’s headline GMV/revenue figure is dominated by low-margin trading volume, so a bigger top line does not automatically mean a healthier business — which is exactly why the company chose to shrink it.
The numbers
ElasticRun’s revenue swung sharply across four fiscal years as the company first chased pandemic-era volume and then deliberately cut low-margin trading business. Figures are gross revenue/GMV and net loss in Rs crore, as reported by Entrackr and Business Standard from the company’s regulatory filings.
| Fiscal year (ended March) | Revenue (Rs crore) | Net loss (Rs crore) |
|---|---|---|
| FY22 | 3,812 | 359 |
| FY23 | 4,755 | 618 |
| FY24 | 2,434 | 360 |
| FY25 | 2,653 | 145 |
- FY23 revenue grew 24.7% over FY22 but losses grew faster still, up 72% year-on-year — the peak of the unprofitable-growth phase (Entrackr).
- FY24 revenue fell 48.6% year-on-year as the company pulled back from low-margin trading volume, while net loss fell 42% over the same period (Entrackr; Business Standard).
- FY25 revenue rose 9% year-on-year to Rs 2,653 crore and net loss narrowed further to Rs 145 crore, which Business Standard attributed to a push into higher-margin private-label products and logistics services (November 2025).
Where the money comes from
ElasticRun’s revenue mix shifted meaningfully between FY23 and FY24, and that shift is the surprise in the numbers — the company got smaller on top line while its higher-margin line grew:
- FY23 split: FMCG trading goods, Rs 4,383 crore (about 92% of GMV, up 25.8% year-on-year); logistics/freight services made up the remaining roughly 8% (Entrackr).
- FY24 split: trading-goods income fell 53.7% to Rs 2,023 crore, while services income rose 10.3% to Rs 406 crore — services grew even as the overall business shrank (Entrackr).
- Geography: the company’s stated network reach — per a 2023 Inc42 study cited by YourStory (April 2024) — covered more than 80,000 villages and enabled over 500,000 kirana stores across 500-plus towns to order directly through its app; ElasticRun has not published an independently audited breakdown of state-wise or channel-wise revenue.
- The surprise: the segment growing fastest is the one that looks least like classic e-commerce — fee-based logistics for brands, not the FMCG resale that built the company’s scale.
The risks
- Thin, cyclical trading margins: the core FMCG resale business runs on wafer-thin margins — Entrackr’s own calculation that ElasticRun “spent Rs 1.15 to earn a rupee” in FY23 shows how directly volume growth in that line can translate into wider losses, which is why the company shrank its own GMV by nearly half in FY24 to control losses.
- Valuation and funding risk: HSBC’s decision to mark the company down to $800 million in June 2024, against a $1.5 billion round just over two years earlier, signals investor caution about the path to profitability; no new priced round has followed to reset that number, leaving ElasticRun’s current worth genuinely unsettled.
- Strategic execution risk: the 2022–23 attempt to expand into urban quick commerce in cities such as Bhopal, Indore and Delhi was wound down within roughly nine months once it became clear it needed cash burn and capex the company was not prepared to fund — a reminder that straying from the core rural mandate has already cost it time, money and headcount once.
The takeaway
ElasticRun’s most instructive year was not the one where its revenue doubled — it was the one where the company chose to cut its own top line in half. Growth bought on thin trading margins is not the same as a healthier business, and a company that keeps chasing gross merchandise value without controlling for what each rupee of that value actually costs to earn is building a bigger version of the same problem. The lesson that travels beyond rural commerce: a leaner, smaller number that a business can defend is worth more than a larger one it cannot.
Frequently asked questions
What does ElasticRun do?
ElasticRun operates a B2B platform that connects FMCG brands to kirana stores in India’s small towns and villages, fulfilling orders through an asset-light network of leased warehouses, contracted vehicles and local manpower rather than infrastructure it owns outright.
Who founded ElasticRun and when?
Sandeep Deshmukh, Shitiz Bansal and Saurabh Nigam founded ElasticRun in 2016 in Pune, after Deshmukh identified a gap in rural fulfilment infrastructure during his time at Amazon India.
Is ElasticRun a unicorn?
It became one in February 2022, when a $330 million Series E led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2 and Goldman Sachs Asset Management valued it at $1.5 billion. HSBC later marked that valuation down to $800 million in June 2024, and no new priced round has been reported since, so its current value is unconfirmed.
Is ElasticRun profitable?
No. It reported a net loss of Rs 145 crore in FY25, though that is down sharply from losses of Rs 360 crore in FY24 and Rs 618 crore in FY23, as the company shifted toward higher-margin private-label products and fee-based logistics.
How much funding has ElasticRun raised, and from whom?
ElasticRun has raised a total of $462 million across six rounds since 2016, with backers including Kalaari Capital, Norwest Venture Partners, Prosus Ventures, Avataar Ventures, SoftBank Vision Fund 2 and Goldman Sachs Asset Management.
Sources
Figures are as of September 2026. Currency converted at $1 ≈ ₹96.0 as of 18 September 2026 (Trading Economics).
- Entrackr, “ElasticRun GMV drops 49% to Rs 2,434 Cr in FY24, cuts losses by 42%,” October 2024
- Entrackr, “ElasticRun’s GMV crosses Rs 4,700 Cr in FY23, losses surge 72%,” November 2023
- Entrackr, “SoftBank-backed unicorn ElasticRun crosses Rs 1,000 Cr revenue in FY21,” March 2022
- Business Standard, “ElasticRun trims FY25 loss to ₹145 cr, revenue up 9% on private-label push,” November 2025
- Business Standard, “B2B start-up ElasticRun takes a step back, to focus on core strategy,” April 2023
- Forbes, “India’s ElasticRun Becomes Unicorn With $300 Million Funding Round Led By SoftBank,” February 2022
- TechCrunch, “SoftBank, Goldman Sachs mint unicorn in Indian commerce startup ElasticRun,” February 2022
- Multiples.vc, “ElasticRun Valuation, Funding & Investors,” accessed September 2026
- Outlook Business, “HSBC Values B2B E-commerce Unicorn Elastic Run at $800 Million: Report,” June 2024
- KrAsia, “Indian kirana commerce startup ElasticRun raises USD 75 million from existing backers,” April 2021
- Forbes India, “For the long run: Meet the last-mile boys of rural India,” accessed September 2026
- YourStory, “ElasticRun: An Indian Unicorn helping 1000s of Kiranas in India,” April 2024
- YourStory, “[Turning Point] How the pandemic enabled B2B e-commerce unicorn ElasticRun,” February 2022
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