India’s ‘Uber for trucks’ joins unicorn club with $67m series E round

BlackBuck, an Indian online platform that connects companies with truck operators, announced that it has raised US$67 million in a series E round. This takes the startup’s valuation to over US$1 billion, parking it squarely in the unicorn club.

Photo credit: BlackBuck

The round was led by Tribe Capital, IFC Emerging Asia Fund, and VEF. Existing investors such as Wellington Management, Sands Capital, and International Finance Corporation also participated in the round.

BlackBuck is the 16th Indian startup to become a unicorn this year after Digit Insurance, Innovacer, Meesho, Infra Market, PharmEasy, Cred, Groww, ShareChat, GupShup, ChargeBee, Urban Company, Moglix, Zeta, BrowserStack, and Grofers.

Known as India’s “Uber for trucks,” BlackBuck will use the funds to further its expansion plans. It will also invest in product and data sciences capabilities to enable more efficient freight matching, the company said in a statement.

Founded in 2015, BlackBuck was backed in the past by marquee investors such as Tiger Global, Accel, and Sequoia Capital India. According to the startup, it drives 90% market share of all online trucking activity in the country.

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“The new financing round gives us more firepower to invest in fundamentally hard trucking problems and continue deepening our reach and impact,” said Rajesh Yabaji, co-founder and CEO of BlackBuck.

The startup said it has nearly 700,000 truckers and 1.2 million trucks registered on its platform and sees over 15 million monthly transactions. BlackBuck currently has over 10,000 customers, including including small and medium-sized enterprises as well as large corporations like Hindustan Unilever, Reliance, and Coca Cola.