Fortigo, a trucking logistics start-up, has raised about $10 million in its Series A round of funding from existing investors Accel Partners and Infosys co-founder Nandan Nilekani. This development comes to light through the company’s filing with the Registrar of Companies (RoC).
Vivek Malhotra, co-founder of Fortigo has confirmed that the company has secured Series A funding round. Earlier, the company had raised around $2 million in its seed funding from Accel and Nandan Nilekani at the time of its launch.
The newly raised funding will be used by Fortigo to expand its current network of trucks, invest in building its core technology product further and help small and medium-sized fleet owners in getting on the Goods and Services Tax Network (GSTN), among other things. It will also look to build out a payments platform for the logistics industry with the funds raised.
Fortigo was founded in late 2015 by Vivek Malhotra with former Genpact executive Anjani Mandal. They both are former executives of technology services firm Headstrong, which was acquired by Genpact for $550 million in 2011.
Currently, the company has about 6,500 trucks on its platform and will scale up rapidly to accommodate “close to 50,000 trucks by sometime next year”.
Subrata Mitra, partner at Accel Partners India said,
With the proposed GST coming up and growing importance of electronic payments in business transactions, we expect the Fortigo Network to play a significant role in transforming the unorganized and fragmented transport industry. As India’s only freight exchange enabled with transactions, Fortigo also provides unique value-adds including electronic payments at primary as well as secondary levels.
The company is currently building a fleet management service for truck owners that will help them manage and track their inventory more efficiently and help save logistics costs. The technology platform also helps truck drivers plan journeys more effectively and reduce the possibility of delays in transportation.
The trucking logistics sector has witnessed a significant amount of investment in recent times. Recently, early-stage ventures such as Blackbuck and Rivigo, have raised massive funding rounds. BlackBuck recently raised $70 million from Sands Capital and others, while Rivigo had raised $75 million in Series C round and has secured debt funding a couple of months ago.
