 "Truck drivers walk out of a Commercial Taxes Department check post after getting clearance to cross a checkpoint with their goods at the Chavadi checkpoint on the outskirt of Coimbatore in Tamil Nadu")
Bengaluru-based online freight booking company BlackBuck has raised $25 million in Series B funding from Tiger Global, Russian billionaire Yuri Milner's personal fund Apoletto, as well as existing investors Flipkart and Accel Partners.
The company, which started its service in July 2015, acts as an intermediary between truck operators and customers, using its technology platform to provide on-route information and dashboard analytics. Its platform will also allow truck operators to handle daily operations.
"We're definitely going to use the money to expand across locations and increase penetration across the country. We want to move our entire map to over 200 locations and become the largest transporter in the country within a year's time," said Rajesh Yabaji, Co-Founder at BlackBuck. "We will have money to go global with this round."
BlackBuck will also invest on building products for truck owners for them to be able to manage operations. The company co-invests with truckers to install GPS and other sensors on trucks for effective fleet tracking. Flipkart and Accel had participated in the $ 5 million series A funding of BlackBuck back in July.
The company has so far raised $ 30 million in total, is present in 40 locations across the country and has a team of 200 people. It plans to use some of its recently raised capital to build a team of experts in the technology, business development and sales verticals.
E-commerce major Flipkart, which it has invested in BlackBuck, requires express logistics for its deliveries rather than freight requirements. "The investment from Flipkart is more on building a logistics ecosystem. There will definitely, in the future, be a confluence of all of these aspects," added Yabaji.
The inter-city marketplace logistics for standard trucks is worth $ 70 billion today and on a yearly basis sees double the growth of the country's GDP. BlackBuck, unlike hyperlocal logistics players aren't riding a wave of growing e-commerce to fuel their own growth, said Yabaji.
