Logistics Startup LoadShare Raises $5 Mn Series A Funding From Stellaris, Matrix Partners

Bengaluru-headquartered logistics startup LoadShare has raised around $5 Mn (INR 32 Cr) in Series A funding led by Stellaris Venture Partners. Existing investor Matrix Partners also participated in the round.

According to reports, the newly-secured capital will enable LoadShare to strengthen its leadership team and bolster its tech infrastructure, while also expanding its geographical footprint across the country.

As part of the latest funding round, Alok Goyal, a Partner at Stellaris Venture Partners, is set to join LoadShare’s board.

Commenting on the investment, Goyal said, “LoadShare is a unique opportunity to create an asset-less business in a massive, highly-fragmented, inefficient and a capital-intensive industry.”

LoadShare Growth Story: 2017 To Present

LoadShare was founded in 2017 by former Myntra executive Raghuram Talluri, along with Tanmoy Karmakar and Rakib Ahmed. It provides a technology platform to logistics companies to form an uninterrupted delivery solution. It works with small logistics players to create an analytics-driven platform.

Essentially, the company aims to empower the country’s small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in logistics by offering them access to technology, operational know-how as well as its pan-India network.

Among its services are first-mile, line-haul and last-mile deliveries. Additionally, LoadShare also provides modular logistics software solutions to its clients.

Speaking about the company’s offerings, LoadShare co-founder and CEO Raghuram Talluri said, “We are building a logistics network by working with existing logistics players — both small and big — in the ecosystem. Elements like which partner to use in which area, the visibility of the shipment, etc, are all orchestrated by our technology platform.”

Currently, LoadShare facilitates up to 20,000 B2C shipments per day and is now looking to enter B2B logistics. As stated by Talluri, the goal is to expand its B2C arm substantially, so that it accounts for nearly half of the company’s overall business within the next 12 months.

Elaborating further, he said, “Eventually B2B will become a larger part of our business because the B2B opportunity is much larger than the B2C space.”

If successful, LoadShare’s foray into the B2B logistics segment could result in a ten-fold growth of its overall business by 2018-end. Prior to the latest funding round, LoadShare raised an undisclosed amount of Pre-Series A funding from Matrix Partners India last May

Fundings Galore In The Indian Logistics Sector

The Indian logistics industry is forecasted to touch $307 Bn by 2020. Currently valued at $130 Bn, around 35%-40% of the market is in the intra-city space. It is also estimated that 1.8 Mn small commercial vehicles complete millions of transactions daily, across the country.

As per Inc42 DataLabs Funding Report 2017, transport-tech startups raised $1.65 Bn funding across 37 deals. In H1 2017, in terms of the amount being invested, transport and logistics took the third and fourth spots, respectively, with $528 Mn and $271 Mn in funding. In total, the logistics startups received over $271 Mn funding across 18 deals in H1 2017.

Apart from small ticket size fundings ranging between $1 Mn -$10 Mn, there are startups like BlackBuck which secured over $90 Mn funding in 2017.

Then there is Rivigo, which after raising $50 Mn in January 2018 at a valuation of $900 Mn, has now become a potential contender to enter the Indian unicorn club.

With its latest $5 Mn Series A funding from Stellaris Venture Partners and Matrix Partners, LoadShare stands a chance to gain a stronghold of the logistics tech segment, especially if it decides to foray into the B2B vertical.

(The development was reported by ET)