Smartr Logistics looking to raise $30 mn in Series A funding by August

Smartr Logistics is expecting to raise $30 mn in Series A funding round by August this year to drive its aggressive expansion plans which include adding pin codes and services offering among others

Smartr Logistics is expecting to raise USD 30 million in Series A funding round by August this year to drive its aggressive expansion plans which include adding pin codes and services offering among others, a top company executive has said.

The city-based company is also eying a more-than-two-fold growth in its topline at Rs 200-250 crore this fiscal from an estimated Rs 90 crore in the just concluded financial year, according to Yogesh Dhingra, Founder, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of Smartr Logistics.

The logistics platform commenced operations in October 2021 with a seed funding of around Rs 100 crore led by IIFL India Pvt Equity Fund and Smiti Holding & Trading Company (Jalaj Dani Family Office).

It currently offers services in both air express and ground logistics space.The company had raised close to Rs 100 crore for seed capital, which was a good amount to run the business (in its initial phase). I think investors are quite comfortable to see this.

We are now getting into a Series A fundraise, which would be to the tune of USD 30-million approximately. And then we will further expand our reach in the domestic market, and hence the product offerings, Dhingra told PTI.

In the fresh round of capital infusion, the company would prefer institutional investors and particularly the ones who besides bringing money also bring with them some kind of benchmark and advice to the table, he said.

The Series A fundraise will be completed by August, he added.

This would be followed by Series B funding, which is expected to come around by early 2025 for implementing the company's warehousing business plans, which should come in the second half of 2024, according to Dhingra.

Smartr is looking to add more pin codes in its operations, he said with a total of 4,000 pin codes by June this year.

The target is to reach 6,500 pin codes by December this year and a total of 8,500-9,000 by June 2024, he said.

This would give the company a market coverage of about 80-85 per cent. I think 8,500 pin codes are good enough for both B2C and e-commerce. And B2B has to play a substantial part in the market, he asserted.

According to Dhingra, the company is growing more than the industry in the segments it is catering to with door-to-door pickup and delivery service clocking about 40 per cent growth while the road express service launched in December last year also getting a good response.

We have e-commerce, within that we have forward, reverse logistics which has a significant portion to our revenue. We are growing at about 35-40 per cent in this segment whereas the industry is growing at 30 per cent. The normal B2B segment is growing about 20 per cent against 15 per cent of the industry's growth, he said.

In the ground service segment, the company as of now is into B2B, which is growing at 50 per cent month-on-month, he said.

The e-commerce ground service is expected to commence from this month, according to Smartr.

At the current run rate, he said, the company expects to register revenue to the tune of Rs 200-250 crore by March next year as against an estimated Rs 90 crore in FY 23, thereby growing its topline by more than double, he said.

Besides the domestic market, which will continue to drive growth, Smartr plans to make foray into cross-border logistics business from this fiscal with the Middle-east to begin with followed by the US and Europe.