RaRa Delivery raises funding to move all Indonesian deliveries to same-day

Founded by Karan Bhardwaj, RaRa Delivery's tech team is based in India, with an aim of scaling its India operations

Instant delivery startup RaRa Delivery has raised $3.25 million in funding led by Sequoia Capital India’s Surge and Indonesia’s East Ventures. RaRa Delivery is Southeast Asia’s only last-mile logistics company focused on one to three-hour deliveries for e-commerce. It does this through its data-driven approach and proprietary technology. The company is on a mission to move all Indonesian deliveries to instant and same-day. RaRa Delivery’s tech team is based in India, with an aim of scaling its India operations from 10 to 40 in the next six months.

“In this age of instant gratification, RaRa Delivery is revolutionising logistics by making it possible for anyone, anywhere to get delivery in a few hours in Indonesia,” said  Karan Bhardwaj, founder and CEO, RaRa Delivery. “While the express delivery space has been flourishing in sectors such as groceries and healthcare, we saw a unique opportunity to scale this offering across all categories, as customer expectations grow alongside the maturity of Indonesia's e-commerce sector.”

Instant gratification is becoming a norm across consumer categories as people’s online ordering habits change, with rapid deliveries fast becoming a need rather than a luxury. In Indonesia, consumer appetite for fast convenience has risen and consumers are willing to pay a premium for fast deliveries. The market size for same-day delivery is expected to grow to 30 per cent, totalling 4.5 million parcels a day by 2023, and premium logistics charges for same-day delivery services is projected to increase to IDR (Indonesian rupiah) 65 trillion in 2023, up from IDR 4.4 trillion in 2018, thereby outpacing the growth in other delivery services.

When it comes to e-commerce in Indonesia, the challenge is building out the technology and infrastructure to solve for scalable, fast deliveries at the most optimal cost in such a large, populous country. There is a significant market opportunity for a last-mile delivery company specialising in instant delivery infrastructure catering to multiple merchants through one seamless interface.

RaRa Delivery was founded in Singapore in July 2019 by Karan Bhardwaj, who graduated from Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. Prior to founding RaRa Delivery, he was managing the end-to-end e-commerce supply chain at Unilever across Southeast Asia and Australasia.

Led by Sequoia Capital India’s Surge and Indonesia’s East Ventures, the funding of RaRa Delivery is supported by 500 Startups, Angel Central, GK Plug and Play, and angel investors Royston Tay and Yang Bin Kwok.

RaRa Delivery’s mission is to make this possible by leveraging a differentiated operating model and real-time batching technology. While other companies with express logistics infrastructure are focusing on ‘one-to-one’ deliveries, Rara has developed proprietary, real-time batching technology to do ‘many-to-many’ deliveries within a few hours. Hence it is bringing down the eventual cost of delivery for customers. At the same time, drivers are able to earn more money in fewer hours.

“Our vision of creating an ecosystem that allows e-commerce marketplaces and sellers to provide a premium customer experience to their end consumers is now becoming a reality, starting first in Indonesia,” said Bhardwaj. “RaRa Delivery is proud to be working with the largest brands in Indonesia in this challenging yet exciting growth chapter.”

RaRa Delivery's Founder, Karan Bhardwaj

The company is also focusing on integrating its services into all major online marketplaces in Southeast Asia to allow any seller to offer instant and same-day deliveries to their customers.

RaRa Delivery has ramped up its offering given the rising demand for instant groceries and medical supply delivery services in response to the global pandemic. The startup counts grocery players such as Sayurbox, as well as healthtech company Alodoktor as key customers. It has been providing essential one to three-hour delivery windows required for food and medical supplies in this crucial time of Indonesia’s fight against Covid-19. The customer experience benefits are felt by large merchants and marketplaces that generate huge demand. RaRa has been able to deliver three-hour deliveries up to 20 per cent cheaper due to the efficiencies of batching technology.

Besides the one to three-hour delivery, RaRa’s platform offers customers reliability and convenience through real-time notifications and status updates. Customers can chat with service agents and drivers, all through a single chat platform. In the back-end, Rara receives orders from businesses and merchants via API integrations, then calculates capacity, timeslots, distance and route optimisation to slot these orders into batches and ensure that productivity is maximised to reduce the cost per order. RaRa Delivery is also one of the few businesses in Indonesia to do real-time reconciliation of Cash on Delivery (COD) through the platform. The company has grown 15x over the past one year.

"RaRa Delivery has been our trusted delivery partner since the launch of Cerita Roti in November 2020,” said Jack Siah, VP, Kopi Kenangan, one of the fastest-growing grab-and-go coffee chains in Indonesia. “Today, partnering with RaRa has enabled us to serve good quality bread to our customers through Kopi Kenangan outlets in Jabodetabek. The speed and agility of their offering ensure we can continue to deliver on our promise of an exceptional customer experience. We look forward to scaling the business together with RaRa to all Kopi Kenangan outlets nationwide."