Backed by Snapdeal founders, LCV marketplace Shipler does 3K orders a month, to raise Series A soon

With the penetration of e-commerce, ancillary industries like logistics have improved greatly. While startups like Delhivery, GoJavas and Ecom Express have been solving the shipping headaches of e-commerce players, a slew of startups are providing for the local or hyperlocal logistics needs of consumers and businesses, via truck and LCV aggregation.

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One such startup is Mumbai-based Shipler. It’s a mobile focused platform for booking tempos, anytime, anywhere. Kaustub Pandey, founder & CEO, Shipler, says,

We aggregate LCVs that rely only on local businesses for their income,on our platform. Our platform allows them to be open to numerous businesses, wherever they go.

Shipler is the brainchild of IIT-B alumni Kaustub, Vinay Julme, Kartik Kacholia, Pratibha Pathania, and Sudheer Jhajharia. Kastub earlier worked with BC Radio and Housing.com, while Vinay has seven years of experience in web development with Mofirst and LearnQ.

Traction and funding

It has been only two and half months since operations began, but the startup receives more than 100 orders on a daily basis, and is working with more than 600 SMEs in Mumbai. At present, the company has a fleet of around 75 vehicles, both on demand and on a fixed basis.

Kaustub adds,

We are able to provide more than two orders to each of our fixed vehicles daily. We aim to increase this number to four orders a day per vehicle, as we expand to other parts of Mumbai.

Shipler generates revenue on every order that goes through its platform. Currently, it is mostly working with SMEs. Besides B2B, Shipler has also launched an app to cater to consumer needs.

The company recently clinched a seed round from Snapdeal’s founder Kunal Bahl, and Rohit Bansal. Shipler is using these funds to optimize its technology and systems, and make itself more automated to ensure higher scalability.

Shipler has a consumer/client-facing app, which people post their requirements through, and a driver-facing app, which receives notifications on the basis of GPS location. Kaustub points out,

Through our app, a user can track their shipment throughout the transaction. Also,our extensive focus on tech and operations has helped us ensure that the vehicle reaches the client’s doorstep within 25 minutes of them placing their order.

USPs and differentiators

Currently, there are plenty of startups in this space, including The Porter, Shippr, Blowhorn and TheKarrier. However, Kaustub says that tech is Shipler’s differentiator.

He adds,

Though our competitors rely on receiving orders through calls, we focus on the tech aspect of everything,in order to ensure our ability to scalefaster. As statistics will show you, even after being around forless than a quarter of the time some of ourcompetitors have been around for, we are doing better in numbers.

At present, Shipleris focusing on scaling; more specifically, expanding to more than 10 cities, as well as establishing an ‘inter city’ category. Kaustub concludes,

Through our product, we want to become a one-stop solution in the realm of planning, optimizing and booking vehicles,for any business or consumer,for shipping goods to anywhere in India.

The company is also in talks to raise Series A funding soon.

Competition and funding in the space

As we mentioned, currently, there are many players in this sector.Some of them have also raised investments from notable angels and VCs. Bangalore-based Blowhorn secured undisclosed amount of seed funding from Unitus Seed Fund, while TheKarrier raised INR 1.5 crore. Mumbai-based Porter recently snapped up INR 35 Crore from Sequoia and Kae Capital.

Of late, Gurgaon based Trucksfirst raised the largest amount in this space, around of INR 61.8 crore ($9.6 million) from SAIF Partners.

Using tech to streamline large unorganized markets is being seen as a huge opportunity by investors, and the seemingly impossible industry of trucks and LCV is now also on their radar. Along with the hyperlocal delivery segment, the truck and LCV aggregation space will be one of the most interesting to watch this year.

Download Shipler app here