India’s heavy goods shipping startup The Porter wants to go intercity with fresh funding

Mumbai-based The Porter, an on-demand logistics marketplace, has raised US$500,000 from early stage VC fund Kae Capital.

Just like UberCARGO, the startup has built a network of drivers to transport heavy goods within the city. With the funding, it plans to expand its presence to Delhi and Bangalore and also start servicing movement of intracity goods.

Much of its funding will also be spent on building a driver- and consumer-facing app which will allow them to track their delivery in real time. “The goods transport business is highly fragmented in India. Its fare varies based on the season. And so we are building complexities to factor these changes,” says Pranav Goel, co-founder of The Porter.

Goel is an IIT graduate who started the company about a year ago with other IIT-ians Uttam Digga and Vikas Choudhary.

Today, its clients include business-to-consumer (B2C) ecommerce portals like UrbanLadder, business-to-business (B2B) players like ITC, and consumer-to-consumer (C2C) clients like people moving house. It claims to be servicing about 2,000 orders per month with 100 vehicles on board.

Logistics is highly fragmented in India with no large formal players dominating the market. However in the recent times, there have been over a dozen startups mushrooming all over the country to tap into the opportunity.

Recently, taxi hailing app Ola entered the space with food delivery and is reportedly planning to start delivering groceries as well. Some of the other funded startups in the space include Unitus Seed Fund-backed Blowhorn.