Airtel X Labs Strengthens Tech Innovation With Acquihire Of Logistics Startup Quikmile

In its bid to strengthen technology stack, telecommunications company Bharti Airtel, on Monday (November 25), announced acquihire of Gurugram-based logistics startup Quikmile. The companies said that Quikmile’s team will now be a part of Airtel X Labs.

Airtel X Labs is a digital innovation factory, which focuses on IoT, digital engineering, artificial intelligence, and machine learning. Airtel X Labs is working to build cutting-edge digital capabilities to serve the emerging needs of digital India. It is also rapidly scaling up its teams and scope of work.

Founded in 2018 by Abhishek Kumar and Jagdish Prasad Saroj, Quikmile is a tech-enabled logistics startup. The company has built an ecosystem by providing tech systems to all stakeholders of the logistics domain and connecting them all together for efficiency, transparency, and more business opportunity.

This includes easy monitoring of fleet minutiae such as engine behavior, tire conditions, mileage, etc, to remove transportation puzzles such as route planning, demand forecasting, analysing vehicular performance, organised achievement of targets.

It also resolves manpower issues through monitoring of driver behavior by tracking complex data to basic information such as distance travelled per day, maximum and average speed, harsh braking, etc.

Harmeen Mehta, Global CIO and Director – Engineering, Bharti Airtel said, “ As we scale up our team with world-class talent, we are thrilled to welcome the Quikmile team as part of Airtel X Labs. India is now amongst the largest economies in the world but has a highly disorganized and inefficient logistics sector.” Airtel used Belong.co’s AI Talent Platform to discover, engage and close this acquihire.

Airtel has been making conscious efforts to engage with the Indian startup ecosystem to advance its technology backend. Last month, Airtel launched its startup accelerator programme to support the growth of early-stage Indian tech startups. The company said that it aims to support the creation of a vibrant startup ecosystem that contributes to the government’s digital India initiative.

The startup accelerator programme will help early-stage startups to get access to Airtel’s online and offline distribution network, deep market understanding and ecosystem of global strategic partners.

At the time, Bengaluru-based tech startup Vahan joined the programme and Airtel bought an 8.8% stake in the company. Airtel has been adopting applications and partner-based approach to boost its IoT business in India. The telecom company is also continuously investing in developing the narrowband IoT (NB-IoT) ecosystem.