Celcius, a cold chain marketplace startup, has raised $4.5 million in a bridging financing round involving Mumbai Angels, Supply Chain Labs, Endurance Capital, VCats, Keiretsu Forum, Huddle, EVAN and others.

“This round is part of the larger Series A financing that the brand is looking to close for $10 million in the coming months,” reads the release.

In August last year, Celcius received $500,000 in seed funding from Mumbai Angels Network, along with Huddle, Lumis Partners, Venture Capital & Private equity firms MaGEHold, Keiretsu Forum, Eaglewings Ventures Alliance Network (EVAN) and investors from Malaysia, Nigeria and the US. The brand has successfully used the funds to scale up its business and diversify the services on its platform by integrating WMS (Warehouse Management System) and TMS (Transportation Management System).

The Mumbai-based startup will use the freshly infused capital to expand geographically to more than 500 cities this year. The brand will also allocate some money to grow its technical, sales and operations team and work on development programs to help small-scale and regional carriers across the country.

“The newly acquired funds will enable us to maintain the momentum to scale our operations across the country. We plan to expand our reach to more than 500 cities and support the country through Covid-19 vaccines and other essential perishables to remote areas. We also recently launched the Vahan Vikas Samriddhi program, through which we aim to financially support regional transport entrepreneurs and encourage them to venture into the cold chain segment. The funds will help us to support this initiative continue to develop.” - Swarup Bose, Founder and CEO, Celsius.

Celcius offers a technology-driven approach to build a well-connected network of shippers and carriers across the country, taking into account the time spent on the road. Since its launch in November 2020, Celcius has onboarded 2,500 vehicles, 107 cold stores, increased operations in more than 150 cities and delivered more than 20 times the initially forecast growth. The brand also has ties to financial institutions such as Shriram Transport and Finance Company as well as OEMs such as Ashok Leyland and Tata.