Logistics start-up Lets Transport raises Rs 8 cr from Japanese VC firm

The Bengaluru-based firm plans to deploy the funds primarily in building technology and its team

Bengaluru-based techno-logistics start-up Letstransport.in (LT) has raised $1.3 mn (Rs 8.3 crore), in a funding round led by Singapore-based Japanese venture capital firm Rebright Partners. The round also saw participation from serial entreprenuers Ankush Nijhawan, Gaurav Bhatnagar and Manish Dhingra. The company plans to use the funds in building techology and its team, said Pushkar Singh, co-founder and chief executive officer of LT. The logistics company also plans to expand to more cities.

This is the company’s first round of funding. LT has recently acquired Shifter, an online mini-truck procurement service. It offers intra-city logistics services for both business-to-business (B2B) as well as business to consumer (B2C) needs, and has been growing monthly at 90 per cent, said Singh, a former employee at ITC. Apart from Singh, the founding team consists of Sudarshan Ravi and Ankit Parasher with experience in diverse fields.

“During my tenure at ITC, I had spent hours chasing trucks which often did not report on time at the factory. This unreliability and unaccountability had a cascading effect on the operations and was a major pain point. Adding to this, there were many trucking services that were desired but even the leading vendors didn’t provide them. Over the time, I noted that this big gap had only widened and the only way this could be bridged was through a technology enabled solution.”

Apart from Singh, the founding team consists of Sudarshan Ravi and Ankit Parasher with experience in diverse fields such as strategy, operations, business and product development. The three graduates from IIT Kharagpur launched LT in November 2014.

“We wanted to be confident of our model and this industry, hence we had not raised funds externally initially. Now that both our clientsand our drivers have confidence in us; we believe the time is opportune and we are ready to scale-up,” said Ravi.

“We have explored similar markets in southeast Asia and see immense potential in the on-demand logistics market in India. The team has brilliant operational insights developed from grass-root level knowledge, which has enabled them to conceptualise a relevant global product having the ability to disrupt the logistics space,” said Takeshi Ebihara, Founder General Partner, Rebright Partner.