
LEAP India puts FMCG goods on shelves on time, besides reducing carbon footprint
Aug 30, 2017 Mumbai: LEAP India ensures better storage and efficient transportation of FMCG goods in the country by letting Pallets on lease to all leading FMCG brands in the country. The company is currently working with more than 130 leading brands in FMCG sector to move their goods. In the current scenario of diminishing customer loyalty, the need for brands to be efficient in ensuring their brand presence on the shelves of shops, super and hyper markets. The timely delivery of goods has become deciding factor on increasing market share of FMCG companies. The customers are fast to pick up another brand goods, if the specific brand is not available on the shelves. Any delays in transportation of these goods may lose the customers to competition. The increasing competition in the sector has necessitated the senior management of these companies to change the way their goods are stored and the way their goods are transported. Pallets have helped them in a big way in the last one decade of their presence in the country to weed out inefficiencies in storage and transportation of goods fast. LEAP is one of seven companies in the world present in manufacturing and leasing pallets to FMCG, Automobile, Healthcare, logistic firms and beverage companies. The company has started operations in the year 2013 and has been growing at 200% year on year. Changing times also demands for change in the way one store and transport goods in India. Worldwide palletisation is very old concept and entire storage and transportation of goods are palletized. Pallet is made of imported wood, nails and edible paint from Russia, Ukraine and Germany. Once the goods are stored on the pallet, it is very easy for fork lifts to move the goods on to trucks or any other transport, when the goods reaches to the destination it is easy for the shops, super markets and hyper markets to unload the goods from the trucks. The developed markets have embraced this concept four to five decades back and their entire movements of the goods are done on pallets. The pallet moves from manufacturer to Wholesaler, from there to retailer and finally to customer. Moreover, the palletizing across the world has reduced carbon footprint and lots of these large corporates and leading brands have been earning carbon credits. The same should be the case in India, as the pallets life is more than 25 years with good maintenance at regular intervals, the need for cutting more trees doesn’t arise. This saves lots of capex for these brands, time to focus on their core and also reduce carbon foot print.

LEAP India coverage in Hyderabad publications
Headlines: • Vaartha:: LEAP India towards Rs 100/-crores • Visalandhra:: LEAP India towards Rs 100/-crores.

Pallets manufacturer Leap India eyes seven-fold bump in topline in 3 years
Wooden pallets manufacturer Leap India plans to increase its topline by over seven times in three years by trebling production capacity to meet its rising demand from corporate customers like Amul, Coca Cola, Mondelez, Nestle and Flipkart. The city-based supply chain solutions company Leap India plans to achieve revenue target of Rs 280 crore by 2020. Currently, the company with employment of over 200 skilled and unskilled workers, supplies about one million pallets made from Russian-imported wood with the help of equipment pooling and returnable packages. The company achieved its topline of Rs 37 crore during the financial year (FY) 2016-17 and doubled revenue from its operations in each of the last four FYs. "Leap India recently raised Rs 110 crore from private equity players like Mayfield, IndiaNivesh, Sixthsense and TCI Ventures. They had already raised Rs 50 crore and debt and is expected to close another Rs 100 crore. This investment will take company's pallets to three million by 2020, which would generate Rs 280 crores revenues for the company," said Sunu Mathews, managing director, Leap India. Indians practice traditional method for the movement of goods. For example, a truck full of goods requires 14 workers and 3 hours to load and offload it. However, palletising requires forklifts for moving huge amount of goods; hence, the hefty three hours are reduced to just 30 minutes, which in turn saves a lot of time and effort and saves on additional costs. The use of pooled pallets will save capital expenditure for corporate that has been using their own pallets for a long time, he added. Pallets are the structural foundation of a unit load, which allows handling and storage efficiencies. And, Palletisation is a process of safely transporting the goods from factory to customers efficiently by reducing the number of labour requirements and time resulting in a rise of operational efficiency, on-time delivery and more visibility of products on a shelf. Founded in the year 2013, the company is currently working with more than 200 leading corporate spread across food, fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG), e-commerce, pharma, automobiles etc.

LEAP INDIA PLANS TO RAISE RS 100 CRORE VIA DEBT
Mumbai-based supply chain solutions company LEAP India plans to raise Rs 100 crore through debt to expand wooden pallet capacity and increase its footprints. "We have raised around Rs 110 crore last year through Series B funding from existing as well as new investors.

LEAP India plans to raise Rs 100 crore via debt
City-based supply chain solutions company LEAP India plans to raise Rs 100 crore through debt to expand wooden pallet capacity and increase its footprints. "We have raised around Rs 110 crore last year through Series B funding from existing as well as new investors. We are now looking at raising around Rs 100 crore through bank loans to meet our capital expenditure plans," LEAP India Managing Director Sunu Mathew told PTI today. "We are aiming to garner a significant market share in the asset pooling space which otherwise has been a highly fragmented and unorganized market," Mathew added. Earlier, the company had raised funding from Mayfield and Rishabh Mariwala. The company also saw participation from new investors like IndiaNivesh Growth Fund, Sixth Sense and TCI Ventures. Founded in July 2013, LEAP is fast expanding its customer base, pan-India network and technological capability in the business of renting and pooling wooden pallets and foldable large containers. It currently supplies about one million pallets made of wood imported from Russia and 20,000 containers to over 200 Indian companies as well as MNCs in the FMCG, consumer durable, beverages and auto space. We now plan to expand the capacity to three million pallets by 2020, Mathew said. With the new investments and growing demand from customers, the company expects its revenue to touch Rs 100 crore this fiscal from Rs 37 crore logged last year and it aims to achieve turnover of Rs 280 crore by 2020, he added. "With the launch of country's largest ever tax reform of GST, warehouses sizes are set to get larger. Improving efficiency in the supply chain and scaling up these large warehouses would be difficult without the usage of pallets," said the MD. Leap has 14 manufacturing centers and 22 warehouses across the country.

LEAP Coverage in ET Jul 01, 2017
Supply chain disruptions The supply chain will get disrupted in the short term owing to adjustments needed to file taxes and claiming input tax credit. However, this would be a temporary period of realignment before the supply chain readjusts. Moreover, companies are incentivising the distribution in the form of higher discounts and compensation in case of any losses owing to the GST regime.

Logistics firm Leap raises $13m in funding
Times News Network , Bengaluru: Mumbai-based logistics solutions company Leap India has raised $13 million (Rs 88 crore) in series B funding from its existing investors Mayfield,Rishabh Mariwala, who manages Sharp Ventures, the family office of Marico founder Harsh Mariwala, and new investors IndiaNivesh Growth Fund, Sixth Sense and TCI Ventures.Leap previously raised $23 million through a combination of debt and equity.Leap, which counts Carlsberg and Pernod Ricard as customers, provides packaging solutions like wooden pallets and foldable large containers on a rent for storing and moving products across the supply hain. The firm caters to customers in the FMCG, consumer durables,beverages and auto space and has 377 touch points across the country that allows customers to hire and de-hire pallet and foldable containers. Leap competes with Australian logistics solutions firm Chep that offers container pooling services in the country. Sunu Mathew, promoter and managing director of Leap, said fresh capital would be deployed to bolster its technology platform and hire employees as it seeks to expand its footprint into other tier 1 and 2 markets. “Palletization drives efficiency and saves cost significantly.Instead of carton boxes directly loaded on to the trucks, the palletized load increases the truck turnaround time substantially. A 9-tonner truck requires 14 people and 3.5 hours to load and unload carton boxes. But if you palletize it and use a forklift, it takes 30 minutes to load and unload goods. It gives you 15%-17% cost efficiency compared to loading cartons directly onto the trucks,” said Mathew.Vikram Godse, managing partner of MF Advisors, said, “With the onset of GST, the size of warehouses will only get larger. In order to bring about higher levels of efficiency in the supply chain, scaling up these large warehouses seems difficult without the usage of pallets. By variablising capex through leasing of pallets to customers, Leap is ensuring faster proliferation of pallets,” Systematix Capital acted as the sole financial advisor to Leap for this transaction.

LEAP Raises Series B Round of Funding
Economic Times , 6/01/2017 : "Mumbai based supply chain solutions company LEAP India Pvt Ltd has raised a Series B round of financing from new investors IndiaNivesh Growth Fund, Sixth Sense and TCI Ventures" The $13 million (approximately Rs 88.34 crore) round saw participation from existing investors Mayfield and Marico's Rishabh Mariwala, who manages Sharp Ventures, the family office of Marico founder and chairperson Harsh Mariwala participated in the round. Founded in 2013, LEAP provides returnable packaging and pooling of equipment. The company caters to Indian companies and MNC clients in the field of FMCG, consumer durables, beverages and auto space. The returnable packaging provided by LEAP include wooden pallets for storing and foldable large containers for transfer and storage of products during movement from one location to the other. “With the onset of GST, the size of warehouses will only get larger.In order to bring efficiency in the supply chain, scaling up these large warehouses seems difficult without the usage of pallets. By leasing pallets to customers, LEAP is ensuring faster proliferation of pallets across India's warehouses,“ said Vikram Godse, managing partner of MF Advisors LLP, the Indian arm of venture capital firm Mayfield. Including the current round, LEAP has raised $ 23 million in equity and debt funding so far. The current round will be utilized for strengthening the team and developing asset pooling service by the company in a largely unorganized market. “Our fundamental of being `Quick and accurate' for distribution of products to the last mile will gain strength,“ said Sunu Mathew, promoter and managing director at LEAP.

LEAP won the SCMPro Awards 2016
SCMP is a monthly magazine for Supply Chain professionals for ENTERPRISE USERS as well as SERVICE PROVIDERS. The magazine contains specialist articles, news and information designed to update the readers on the developments in supply chain industry. Specialised articles are also contributed by the Industry Leaders and Academicians. Besides, there are other updates published to keep the readers keep pace with the Industry. Published in the 1st week of the month, the magazine is distributed to the readers through courier.

LEAP's press release in SCMPro Magazine- Expert's Review
LEAP was part of the LSP Summit of SCMPro and was nominated for various award Categories