Just after its seed round, logistics focused marketplace The porter to raise Series A funding
Marketplace for logistics - The Porter- which connects customers with commercial vehicles for quick and effortless goods transportation, has raised INR 3 crore funding from Kae capital. The startup diluted 15% stake for the raised capital.
Following the round Sasha Mirchandani of Kae Capital joins The Porter’s board. The company will use proceedings for geographical expansion, tech development and team building.
The Porter primarily connects customers with commercial vehicles for quick and effortless goods transportation. According to YourStory sources The Porter is in advance talk to raise Series A, however the company denied to comment on this.
Inspired by the ‘Uber for X’ concept, Pranav Goel and Uttam Digga from IIT Kharagpur and Vikas Choudhary from IIT Kanpur studied the business model of Uber and similar companies which were aggregating existing supply and matching it to demand in a much more efficient and effortless way by using technology.
The trio did ground research on logistics in Mumbai and found a huge gap of market inefficiency in the last mile delivery. “We did preliminary research in Bangalore and Delhi and inter-city logistics (long haul) and the results were similar,” says Pranav.
In terms of traction the Mumbai based venture processes more than 3000 bookings on a monthly basis. We are growing at more than 50% on monthly basis and serving more than 500 plus customers,” said Pranav, Co-Founder, The Porter.
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Importantly, the five months old startup has a monthly run rate of INR 30 lacs. Pranav added,
We are addressing low capacity utilization prevalent in this sector (currently 30-35%) and aim to increase it to more than 70%. We cater to two customer segmentation - on-demand (where we have 20% take rate) and scheduled demand, mostly institutional client (take rate - 15%).
Currently, there is a huge mismatch in the market between consumers and truck drivers. While drivers are not being able to access the large demand around them, consumers find it difficult to get a reliable and efficient solution. “We at ThePorter are trying to disrupt and organize logistics in India, which is highly fragmented and inefficient suffering from low capacity utilization –namely no return customer and high idle/waiting time,” revealed Pranav.
At present the company has 50 people team in its operations and business development verticals. “We plan to expand to more than 200 people after three months and have already added key people in operations and technology,” said Pranav. The company had roped in senior professionals from Damco India, Barista/Lavazza, Nuance Communication and Walmart Labs.
With this round The Porter is operationally expanding in Mumbai and suburban region like Bhiwandi, Panvel, Kalyan, Vashi. The company is launching in Delhi (NCR) in next month and Bangalore by July this year. “We will be present in more than 6 cities pan India in next one year and will become one point solution for LCV booking across major cities in India, with largest network of vendors and customers in the country,” concluded Pranav.
ThePorter competes with likes of Bangalore based Shippr and Blowhorn which are also in the same space.