Chinese e-commerce major Alibaba Group is reportedly in talks with two Indian e-commerce logistics firms, Delhivery and Xpressbees, for potential investments to build a strong logistics infrastructure before launching its horizontal marketplace platform in the country, The Economic Times has reported.

Both Delhivery and Xpressbees work with Paytm as third-party logistics and eKYC partners.

As per the report, Alibaba is likely to acquire a major stake in a logistics company in India and the decision will be taken in four to six months before it launches operations in the country. Alibaba Group is planning to enter India this year and is looking at opportunities to build the business organically or through other means.

“We are planning to enter the e-commerce business in India in 2016. We have been exploring very carefully the e-commerce opportunity in this country, which we think is very exciting on the backdrop of Digital India,” Alibaba Group President J Michael Evans had said in March this year.

Alibaba had had talks with Flipkart in the last quarter of 2015 to buy out the Indian e-commerce bellwether as per the several media reports. Alibaba also owns around 5% of Snapdeal, the second-largest Indian online retailer.

Xpressbees was first started as the logistics arm of baby products retailer Firstcry in 2012. In September 2015, the company was spun out from FirstCry as BusyBees Logistics Solutions Pvt Ltd to function as an independent business. The business has been built by FirstCry founders Supam Maheshwari and Amitava Saha.

The Pune-based company had raised about $12.5 million (around Rs 86 crore) in funding from existing investors SAIF Partners, IDG Ventures India, NEA, Vertex Ventures, and Valiant Capital in February this year. It claims to serve almost all the largest e-commerce players in the country.

Delhivery was founded by Sahil Barua, Mohit Tandon, Bhavesh Manglani, Suraj Saharan and Kapil Bharati in 2011. It has grown from a local on-demand delivery company to a full-fledged logistics services provider in less than five years. Owned and operated by SSN Logistics Pvt. Ltd, Delhivery had raised $85 million in its Series D round of funding led by Tiger Global with participation from existing investors Multiples Alternate Asset Management, Nexus Venture Partners and Times Internet Ltd in May 2015.

It had previously raised close to $40 million in various rounds from a number of investors after raising its first funding round from Times Internet in 2012.