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Bangalore-based Locus, logistics management startup, has raised $2.75 Mn (INR 18.3 Cr) in Series A funding led by Exfinity Venture Partners. Other investors who participated in the round were Blume Ventures, BeeNext and Rajesh Ranavat, MD of Fung Capital along with its existing investors.
With this, Balakrishnan V, Chairman, Exfinity Venture Partners and ex CFO of Infosys, joins the Locus board. He said,
The logistics industry in India is evolving rapidly and it is the interplay of infrastructure, technology and new types of service providers that will define whether the industry is able to help its customers reduce their logistics costs and provide effective services. This provides an opportunity to solve these problems in a fundamentally different way using algorithms with greater opportunity for optimisation.
Locus solution is built by factoring real world fuzziness to support iffy networks, inaccurate addresses, and hundreds of other exception scenarios. It can also club orders in real-time re-routing to maximise throughout.
Founded in 2015 by BITS Pilani and IIT graduates Nishith Rastogi and Geet Garg, Locus is a machine learning startup focused on simplifying logistics. With pluggable algorithms for everything related to logistics, Locus helps traditional logistics businesses with service like hyper-local delivery, intra and intercity logistics, automated smart dispatches, tracking & fleet visualisation, geocoding, and route deviation engine.
Nishith Rastogi, CEO of Locus, said, “Supply chain, delivery and logistics are the critical challenges and key to competitive advantage for enterprises. We at Locus have created high-end algorithms and systems.”
Locus has also created a consumer safety app christened, RideSafe which is powered by their Realtime Route Deviation Detection (R2D2) engine. The algorithm aids the users safety by mapping the route automatically by taking into consideration set of acceptable routes, traffic and other factors. The startup helps local companies and enterprises in courier, ecommerce, food delivery, FMCG and other verticals to optimise their logistics. Some of its customers include Urban Ladder, Delhivery, and FreshMenu.
The startup will use the newly raised capital to strengthen its technology offerings and expand the team.
Prior to this, Locus had raised an undisclosed amount of funds from growX ventures and Manish Singhal. Locus has also been a part of Microsoft Ventures’ 8th Accelerator batch. The startup competes with
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