Borzo eyes B2B push as quick commerce war heats up

Borzo eyes B2B push as quick commerce war heats up

BENGALURU: For intracity delivery platform Borzo, India is the largest market, accounting for 60-65% of its gross merchandise value and 78% of global deliveries. Its new country head now wants to keep that lead while reshaping where the growth comes from, and at what cost.

Darryl Dias, who recently took over as Borzo country head for India, is pushing a shift away from a customer base dominated by individuals and small businesses towards a more balanced mix that includes mid-sized and large enterprises. The pivot comes as faster intracity deliveries and tighter unit economics become central to competition in the segment.

“We no longer want to be heavily dependent on only one sort of segment, which is individuals and SMEs,” Dias told Mint in an interview. “We want to evolve our customer base.”

Today, roughly 85% of Borzo’s revenue in India comes from individuals and small-to-medium businesses, with the remaining 15% from large enterprises and B2B segments. Dias wants to rebalance that split to roughly 50-25-25, with individuals and small and medium businesses (SMBs), mid-market clients, and enterprise customers each commanding a distinct share.

Quick commerce, the model that democratized warehousing through dark stores and promised deliveries in minutes, is now extending into B2B fulfilment. Mint reported in July last year that quicker deliveries have become crucial for supply chain companies to strengthen loyalty and keep up with growing competition.

As the focus across India’s delivery ecosystem shifts from speed alone to unit economics and service reliability, competition is expanding beyond groceries and consumer goods into the last-mile needs of businesses.

In India, Borzo competes with Porter, Delhivery, Shadowfax, and Swiggy Genie in the intracity category. Dias recently joined Borzo as the country manager after an eight-year stint as the co-founder of electric vehicle startup Magenta Mobility.

India’s intracity logistics market was sized at $700 million in FY25 and is expected to cross $2 billion by FY30, according to estimates by Redseer Strategy Consultants.

Profitability push

Borzo says it has been profitable in India for the past two years, even as competition intensifies. “In the last two years, India vertical has been profitable. And it’s not wafer-thin profit,” Dias added. Operating margins are also seeing double-digit growth, according to the executive.

He attributes this to three factors: a high repeat rate that keeps customer acquisition costs low; a focus on maintaining a reliable rider base rather than aggressively expanding it; and a technology stack that supports multi-order deliveries and API integrations for B2B clients.

Borzo has 35,000-40,000 monthly active riders, and does not wish to be aggressive in expanding the number, as it helps keep churn low and thus quality consistent.

“When it comes to B2B, it’s heavy tech integration that’s mandatory for us to enable faster deliveries,” Dias said. “Knowing a client’s orders and pin codes in advance lets us plan batching and driver assignments ahead of time, rather than scrambling in the moment.”

Dias said the company is also looking to deploy artificial intelligence(AI) more deliberately in revenue-linked functions, while avoiding overuse. “You don't need a chainsaw to do a scissors job. The AI investments we have already made [chatbots, driver-assignment algorithms] are table stakes,” he said.

The next phase will focus on areas with “direct impact on revenues”, such as using delivery density heat maps to position riders in high-demand areas during peak hours.

Borzo operates in 23 cities, but volumes are heavily concentrated. Mumbai accounts for 80% of orders, Delhi-NCR 15%, and the remaining 20 cities just 5%. Dias plans to address this by replicating Mumbai’s model in Delhi-NCR and Bengaluru before expanding further to cities such as Pune, Ahmedabad, and Indore later in the year.

The company is also open to raising funds or pursuing acquisitions, though Dias said those discussions have not yet taken place at the board level. For now, the focus remains on building a local team and scaling profitably in a market where efficiency and reliability are becoming as important as speed.

This editorial summary reflects Live Mint and other public reporting on Borzo eyes B2B push as quick commerce war heats up.

Reviewed by WTGuru editorial team.