Indian truck-booking startup raises $5m pre-series A money

India’s Vahak, an online marketplace for road transport, has raised US$5 million in its pre-series A round of funding.

Early-stage investor RTP Global, which backs firms like Cred, Mobile Premier League, and MoneyTap, led the latest funding round. Luxor Capital and Leo Capital also made investments in Vahak.

Cred founder and CEO Kunal Shah, Jupiter’s Jitendra Gupta, Meesho co-founders Vidit Aatrey and Sanjeev Barnwal, and Pine Labs’ CEO Amrish Rao were among the high-profile investors who also took part in the lorry-booking platform’s funding round.

Vahak’s co-founders: Karan Shaha (left), who also serves as CEO, and Vikas Chandrawat, the company’s chief people officer / Photo credit: Vahak

Vahak, which means “carrier” in English, has an operating model similar to China’s truck-hailing startup Full Truck Alliance. Launched in 2017, Vahak aims to make the Indian logistics sector more efficient through the use of technology.

Using the freshly raised funds, Vahak will strengthen its technological capabilities and expand its customer and network base.

“India has a humongous need for freight and special goods transportation for different types of cargos. However, millions of trucks remain idle at any given point of time due to operational inefficiencies caused by a lack of technology. This leads to huge monetary losses for truckers and the logistics sector on a daily basis,” the company said in a statement.

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According to Vahak, it has developed a network of truckers that covers about 8,000 locations across India and manages logistics for more than 10,000 active loads on a daily basis. The company plans to bring more than 3 million truckers onto its platform soon.

Vahak further said it aims to reach US$1 billion in annual gross transaction value (GTV) within the next 12 months.

“Vahak’s growth has captured the interest of investors, growing 10x in the past year to over US$100 million annualized GTV run-rate on only US$800,000 raised,” the company added.