Cricket icon Yuvraj Singh backs Moovo to build an Uber for trucks in India

While Anjani Kumar was pursuing his engineering degree from India’s IIT Kharagpur, he came up with the idea of buying a truck to run a side business, and make some extra cash. However, he soon realized how difficult it was to source business. If the truck was idle, he lost money.

“I learned first-hand that market power in the logistics business comes from size and reach,” says Kumar.

Through his experience, Kumar realized there was an existing gap in the market. He went on to team up with Abhishek Anand to build Moovo, an on-demand booking platform for mini-trucks.

Today Kumar revealed that Moovo raised an undisclosed amount of seed funding from cricket icon Yuvraj Singh’s fund YouWeCan. Doshi Diagnostics and other angel investors also participated in the investment round.

“We love to fund ventures that are born out of the personal challenges of their founders. Kumar and Anand set out to find a business solution for their single truck venture and ended up creating an on-demand logistics service for Indian truck owners,” says Vikram Chachra, founder of Eight Capital, an investor in Moovo.

Trucks on demand

Yuvraj Singh with the Moovo team

Moovo aims to simplify the complex business of cargo logistics to the point where users can simply hail a truck through their app. This gives small truck owners direct access to a large pool of customers, boosting revenues and margins, and cutting idle time.

Moovo users can book a truck in Delhi from its app, website, and call center. The startup is aggregating a rapidly growing fleet of trucks with verified drivers, who show up in less than half an hour for pickup.

The six-month-old startup claims to be processing over a thousand orders per month from consumers, small businesses, and online retailers.

Moovo wants to use the funding to expand to six cities by year end.

The logistics market in India is highly fragmented, with no dominant players. However, recently startups have stepped in to tap the vast opportunities available. Taxi aggregator Ola entered the space with food delivery and is reportedly planning to start delivering groceries as well.