LetsTransport raises $12 million from Shanghai-based Fosun International, others

Investments in the logistics space seem have taken a new high. Logistics tech startup BlackBuck raised $27.4 million last week, Pune-based ElasticRun raised $8 million and there are reports that Rivigo too may raise money soon.

Now, Bengaluru-based intra-city logistics company LetsTransport announced that it has raised $12 million from Shanghai-based Fosun International and others. Media reports say that Fosun was the lead investor in the company, with a $5 million investment.

Fosun’s investment in LetsTransport is its second in the country’s tech-based logistics sector. It had earlier backed Gurgaon-based logistics major Delhivery in March last year.

LetsTransport was founded in 2015 by IIT Kharagpur alumni Pushkar Singh, Sudarshan Ravi and Ankit Parasher. The company has raised a total investment of $18.8 million till now.

It raised Rs 27 crore in Series-A round led by Japan's payment gateway company GMO in 2017, and also raised a seed round of Rs 8 crore from Singapore-based Rebright Partners and others in August 2015.

The LetsTransport platform provides inter-city aggregation of mini trucks and a few large vehicles across industry sectors like retail, FMCG and ecommerce to meet the demand. The company offers customised attachment solutions for clients, along with other value-added services such as screened drivers, audited and GPS-enabled vehicles, point-to-point billing, status updates, 24x7 service and greater efficiency, all at transparent and economical pricing.

According to IBEF, the size of the Indian logistics industry is around $200 billion.

LetsTransport has witnessed growth since it acquired Shifter, a logistics company. It scaled Shifter's mini-truck procurement service within just five months of establishment.

In the coming months, there are some big announcements from companies like Lobb, which is building tech for inter-city transport across India such as Uber.

Investment in the logistics space is heating up, and only time will tell when consolidation will begin to happen.