Bengaluru-based logistics start-up Loadshare, which focuses largely on small and medium enterprises (SMEs), has raised an undisclosed amount of funding led by Stellaris Venture Partners and Matrix Partners India.
The company will use the fresh funding to strengthen its core leadership team, expand into new geographies, and to scale its technology base. As a part of the transaction, Alok Goyal, partner at Stellaris Venture Partners, will join the company’s board, the company said in a statement.
Loadshare offers technology solutions and operation management to SMEs working in the logistics sector. Its main focus is to help these companies develop an asset-light logistics service model, thereby helping them to expand their reach in terms of serviceable areas.
The start-up also offers first mile, line-haul, last mile deliveries and modular logistics software solutions to its business partners. It was founded by in 2017 by Raghu Talluri, Tanmoy Karmakar, Rakib Ahmed and Pramod Nair.
Loadshare currently operates in more than 3,500 pin codes across North East and East India, all four South Indian states, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and key metros. According to Raghuram Talluri, chief executive of LoadShare, the company’s biggest customers include e-commerce firms, but it is also planning to expand more into the business-to-business (B2B) logistics segment.
“Our mission is to help SME logistics partners grow, while delivering great service levels, lowest cost and reach to our customers. It’s heartening to see many of our partners grow 10X and more in a short span of time, even in the logistically underserved parts of India. We intend to expand into B2B segment in addition to scaling up B2C” added Talluri.
“Loadshare is a unique opportunity to create an asset-less business in a massive, highly fragmented, inefficient and a capital-intensive industry. We believe the company is well positioned to integrate logistics service providers which have excess capacity but don’t have access to larger shippers, to build a high quality and low-cost delivery network, flexibly orchestrated through software,” said Goyal, partner at Stellaris Venture Partners.
Excluding the current round, the company had raised close to $1 million in seed funding earlier in May 2017, according to Talluri.
Over the past couple of years, investors have put money into several logistics start-ups, especially those which work on the technology end. Logistics companies Rivigo and Blackbuck have raised more than $170 million and more than $100 million, respectively.
Source: Mint