This phygital logistics startup makes shipping sustainable for ecommerce and MSMEs

For Swati Biswas, art and business have always gone hand in hand. Be it dealing with immediate crises such as technical difficulties during a performance or taking up roles of various characters during a performance, she draws a parallel with the managing and taking up various roles at a workplace.

“Any dance form, music form, art form and for that matter sports can help this highly stressed corporate world or startup world,” says Biswas,  Co-Founder and Chief of Strategy Finance & Compliance, Terrago Logistics, adding that it stimulates both sides of the brain and helps in quick decision making.

As a Bharatanatyam dancer, Biswas moves with precision on the stage, every step calculated. In business, the finance guru applies the same level of focus and precision to managing her company’s operations.

The phygital company provides end-to-end logistics solutions in multi-modal transport, warehousing, and last-mile delivery through electric vehicles (EVs).

Terrago’s story begins in 2017 when Mohan Ramaswamy, Biswas’ husband founded the company. While Biswas initially joined as an investor, she then joined him on the venture as a co-founder in October last year. The company now has 700 plus transporters, fleet owners, and brokers in its network.

Market and operations

The company operates in three verticals— last-mile logistics; online cloud-based services through its e-marketplace Logixmile.com; and middle mile operations which offers multimodal services across the country.

“Currently our middle mile operations in predominantly Roadways , however the multimodal operations will amplify by end of 2026, as we have a plan of action getting stitched with rail, air cargo and ship yards for a seamless transportation with help of our tech platform Logixmile.com,” Biswas says.

Having begun with middle mile services, the company then expanded its services to sustainable logistics with the aim to attain net zero carbon emissions.

Ramaswamy chose to partner with Etrio, for retrofitted EVs to be quickly converted to initiate last-mile delivery in ecommerce, says the co-founder.

Its carbonless EV service is currently present in Delhi, Chennai, Hyderabad and Bengaluru, where it offers its services to companies including Amazon, Flipkart, and BigBasket.

It plans to expand it to eight cities including Kanpur, Coimbatore, Chandigarh, Jaipur, Pune, and Kolkata. It further plans to expand to 12 more cities over the next few years.

According to Biswas, the company’s middle mile service operates on a proof of delivery based invoicing model, meaning that the customers are charged once the delivery is complete.

As a superaggregator, the company brings together multiple transport service providers under one platform. With an asset light approach, the vehicles are outsourced and it charges for the trucks, trailers, and other vehicles in its pan India operations.

Meanwhile, for its last-mile services, the revenue model is based on EV deployment and order fulfillment in the ecommerce domain. Additionally, it also maximises productivity of orders which means multiple orders delivered by each vehicle.

Logixmile.com, which is set for a commercial launch in May this year, will operate on a monthly subscription model. However, the company will keep the subscription prices confidential until its launch.

Funding and future

The co-founders bootstrapped the company with an investment of 3.5 crore between the two of them.

The company clocked Rs 25.6 crore in FY 24-25, up from Rs 22.2 crore in revenue it raked in for FY 23-24.

The founder sees Delhivery as its major competitor in the market.

The company is working on its curated e-marketplace, Logixmile, which will integrate shippers, logistics service providers, and fleet owners to provide a unified platform for price discovery and operational excellence.

It will offer price discoveries for large and MSME companies with a monthly subscription model and unique feature of return load discoveries for transporters.

The platform, which is currently in stealth mode, is registering selective clients for onboarding.

“Last-mile integration as (part of) Phase 2 is in progress, and will complete the platform as an e-marketplace in the logistics space,” she adds. It will also have the feature to prioritise electric fleets for price discovery to the shippers.

The multimodal transport will be interfaced with the platform in two years, she adds.

The company sees the MSME community as its target audience. It aims to empower MSMEs in experiencing democratised logistics through unconstrained price discoveries, and it also aims to empower MSMEs to experience and adopt sustainable logistics for intra-city or last-mile distribution.

“We anticipate, in the most conservative estimate, a mere 0.5% conversion of the eligible MSME base, which will have more than 1 lakh subscribers in the next 2-3 years,” concludes Biswas.