Fleet Management Startup LocoNav Raises $4 Mn From Sequoia

Delhi-based fleet management startup BT TechLabs, the parent company of LocoNav, has raised $4 Mn (INR 28 Cr) in a Series B round of funding.

According to the Ministry of Corporate Affairs filings, the investment has come in from the company’s existing investor Sequoia Capital in two tranches from January to May 2019. With a nominal value of INR 100 and a premium of INR 8,715.01, the company has issued 31,765 Series B CCPS to SCI Investments V Body Corporate.

Prior to this round, the company has raised $3.42 Mn from Sequoia in 2017. The investment of $3 Mn was first reported by paper.vc.

An email query sent to Sequoia didn’t elicit any response till the time of publication. LocoNav founder Shridhar Gupta told Inc42 in an email that the company is in the process of raising funds from Sequoia and other new investors.

LocoNav: Transition And Growth

Founded in 2015 by Shridhar Gupta and Vidit Jain, LocoNav started as BabaTrucks, an online marketplace to connect truck or fleet owners with their customers. Later, the startup evolved into an integrated vehicle management platform.

The company offers Fleet Management Solutions, Vehicle Tracking System, FASTag and AIS 140 Certified GPS Trackers services. By leveraging intelligent analytics and IoT, the startup promises lower running costs of vehicles, greater security and faster turnarounds.

The company claims to serve in over 100 cities and says it is three hours away from any location in the country. It claims that it serves over 10K businesses.

Here’s how company benefits multiple roles:

• Fleet Owners:  LocoNav IoT solutions for Telematics and Payments
• Consigners: Increase vehicle efficiency, reduce delivery costs and enhanced customer’s experience
• Aggregators: Leverage LocoNav’s technology stack to build own applications

Financial Performance For FY17-18

In terms of financial performance, the company’s operational revenue of fiscal year 2017-18 was INR 2.29 Cr which came in from sale of goods and services. In FY17, the operational revenue was INR 1.21 Cr with sale of services.

The company recorded losses of INR 6.46 Cr for FY18 after a profit of INR 69.53K in FY17.

In terms of costs, here are the major expenses:

• The company’s employee benefits were INR 3.3 Cr, which rose from INR 36.85 Lakh in the previous year
• LocoNav’s advertisement and publicity expenses grew to INR 24.44 Lakh from INR 20.98K

Fleet Management Industry

In 2017, India was ranked second on the Emerging Markets Logistics Index. Startups in this sector have been adopting new-age technologies, bringing in cloud-based GPS tracking systems, radio-based frequency identifying software to cater to the needs of logistics.

According to Inc42’s ‘The State of Indian Startup Ecosystem 2018‘ report, India had more than 900 startups catering to the country’s logistics sector as of November 2018.