BeatRoute: Making last-mile delivery easier

Manufacturers of consumer goods have to deal with millions of stores, but most often they are not able to track the transactions between distributors and retailers on a real-time basis. BeatRoute is a SaaS (software as a service)-based mobile app platform, which facilitates last-mile trade between consumer packaged goods companies, distributors, and retailers.

Last week, the start-up raised an undisclosed amount of investment in the pre-Series-A round from Quarizon, an accelerator fund. The start-up is a cloud-based platform that manages last-mile coverage by field force transactions between retailers and distributors. It is a combination of a web portal and a smartphone app. The app is equipped with GPS and camera-enabled features, and caters to multiple industry verticals. The app closes the loop between field activity planning, execution and insightful analytics. Its key focus is on consumer packaged goods companies, their distributors, and millions of mom-and-pop stores.

It works with companies such as Danone, Cremica, PepsiCo, Valvoline, Gionee, and Unicharm and has around 300,000 retailers on its platform. The Gurgaon-based start-up was founded in June 2014 by Vinay Singh and Vivek Gaur.

The company makes money by charging a subscription fee to companies depending on the number of users. It also plans to introduce credit facility and online payments for retailers, which will be its another stream of revenue.

"We achieved break-even in April this year and will use the money raised towards operationalising our product's capability," says Singh, chief executive officer.

The start-up has a 16-member strong team and plans to raise series A round of funding in the next one year. It also aims to have 5,000 retailers using its platform for payments in the next four months.