[Funding alert] BlackBuck joins the unicorn club with $67M Series E investment

Online trucking startup BlackBuck has raised Series E funding of $67 million. With this funding, the startup's valuation is now over $1 billion. The round was led by Tribe Capital, IFC Emerging Asia Fund, and VEF. Existing investors Wellington Management, Sands Capital, and International Finance Corporation also participated in this round of funding.

The company stated that it will use these funds to further penetrate the market and launch new service offerings for its customer base. It plans to invest heavily in product and data science capabilities, with the aim of enabling more efficient freight matching for the Indian trucking ecosystem.

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Rajesh Yabaji, Co-Founder and CEO of BlackBuck, said, 

“BlackBuck started with a dream to re-imagine trucking, to make it 10X simple and 10X efficient. It has been six years and we are just getting started to make a difference. We continue to dedicate ourselves for the foreseeable future to solve fundamental Indian trucking problems. The new financing round gives us more firepower to invest in fundamentally hard trucking problems and continue deepening our reach and impact.”

The startup stated it currently drives over 90 percent of the market share of all online trucking activity. BlackBuck digitises fleet operations for truckers and helps match trucks with relevant loads through its marketplace. The platform has close to 700,000+ truckers and over 1.2 million trucks on its platform, and it sees over $15 million in monthly transactions.

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Arjun Sethi, Co-founder and Partner at Tribe Capital, said, "India's supply chain and logistics industry is moving from paper and pencil to digital. BlackBuck’s ability to measure output and productivity growth has streamlined logistical challenges for the industry over a short time frame. Its continued high-velocity growth promises to bring even greater transformation to the Indian trucking ecosystem.”

BlackBuck has over 1.2 million trucks on its platform, operating pan India across 700+ districts and 1,000+ industrial hubs, enabling smooth and efficient trucking operations. Currently, the company has over 10,000 customers, including SMEs and large corporates such as Hindustan Unilever, Reliance, Coca Cola, Asian Paints, Tata, Vedanta, L&T, and Jindal.

Saadia Khairi, Fund Head, IFC Emerging Asia Fund said, 

“At the IFC Emerging Asia Fund, we are excited to partner with BlackBuck in its next phase of growth. We have been impressed with how BlackBuck has continued to leverage technology and its deep understanding of the long-haul freight market to offer solutions that address typical pain points for both the truckers and shippers. In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, BlackBuck has scaled its online freight marketplace and fleet management services rapidly. BlackBuck’s contribution to increased transparency and efficiency in the large, fragmented and predominantly unorganised long-haul freight market in India offers the potential for significant developmental impact.”