FR8, a Chennai-based startup which provides logistics services using trucks, has announced that it has received Rs. 6.5 crore(approx $1 million) in its latest funding round from Omnivore Partners.
With the inflow of fresh capital, the company is now planning to grow ten times over the next 12 months. Further, it also plans to expand its network from seven cities to 17. Currently, it is operating in Chennai, Bengaluru, Kolkata, Delhi-NCR, Mumbai, Hyderabad and Madurai.
Besides expansion of the business, the money raised in the current round will also be used for investing in technology advancement and hiring talent.
Commenting on the funding, Vasanth Immanuel, co-founder of the company, said,
We offer a four-hour commitment to our clients and manually connect orders which have not gotten matched automatically. We believe that we are very capital efficient as we have scaled to Rs 2.5 crore of monthly bookings without raising any capital.
Further expanding on the primary mission of the company, Jay Panneerselvam, co-founder of FR8, said,
FR8’s vision is to use proprietary technology to catalyze a paradigm shift in the Indian logistics industry, making it more efficient, robust, agile, and reliable. FR8 aims to bring truck owners, drivers and customers under a single technology platform.
For Omnivore Partners, the investment in the company comes from its Rs 260-crore fund. Commenting on the investment, Mark Kahn, founding partner at Omnivore Partners, said,
Omnivore believes that FR8 will transform long haul trucking across India while benefiting the agribusiness ecosystem through optimized backhauling of farm commodities. We are excited for FR8 to join the Omnivore portfolio and look forward to working closely with the team.
FR8 (pronounced as freight) started its operations in June this year. It is a technology driven logistics service provider, offering long haul transportation. The company believes in delivering logistics services on time.
Within this short time, the company claims to have more than 2,500 trucks from 400 vendors on the marketplace. As per the company, it currently books around 1,000 orders worth about Rs 2.5 crore a month. Its list of clientele includes Philips, Asian Paints, Pepperfry, Britannia, Preethi Kitchen Appliances, and Paperboat, among others.
The company aspires to establish itself as the top logistics service provider delivering the best through technology and talent with the encouragement of a team culture promoting transparency.
In this space, FR8 will compete against the likes of BlackBuck, The Porter, TrucksFirst, Blowhorn, TruckMandi, among others. According to the report named ‘Logistics Market in India 2015-2020’ by Novonous, the entire logistics industry in India is pegged at $300 billion growing at a CAGR of 12.17 percent by 2020.
