ComfortDelGro’s new $100m fund bets on logistics with Haulio investment

Photo credit: viewapart / 123RF

Singaporean logistics startup Haulio has raised an undisclosed amount of pre-series A funding from investors, including the VC arm of taxi operator ComfortDelGro.

ComfortDelGro Ventures co-led the round with PSA UnboXed, the venture unit of the city-state’s port operator PSA International.

Singapore-based ComfortDelGro is no stranger to the tech scene. It launched a taxi-hailing app way back in 2010, formed a joint venture with Uber in December 2017, and recently revealed it will begin trialing driverless buses.

But the unveiling of its new venture arm – and the fact that one of its first investments is in shipping logistics – is part of a new strategy of “building a new wing beyond [our] core passenger transport business,” said ComfortDelGro’s managing director and group CEO Yang Ban Seng.

The unit is in charge of a US$100 million fund for “incubation and investments in mobility technologies and solutions that complement [ComfortDelGro’s] land transport business whilst providing it with new strategic capabilities,” the company said.

It will invest in startups “that plug technology gaps and address the impact of disruptive challenges to [the company’s] core land transport business,” with a focus on “next-generation mobility companies raising their seed, series A, or series B funding rounds.”

Haulio co-founder and CEO, Alvin Ea (L); co-founder and chief product officer, Sebastian Shen (R) / Photo credit: Haulio

Haulio aims to improve efficiency in the container haulage industry with its “truck-sharing” tech. Customers with containers being unloaded from ships are connected to a marketplace of hauliers via the startup’s platform. Typically, these customers have to arrange haulage from port directly with individual haulage firms or via third-party forwarding services, meaning they don’t necessarily get the best price – while available lorries from other providers sit idle and miss out on earnings.

The startup claims that it has more than three-quarters of Singapore’s hauliers – comprising more than 2,000 trucks and 20,000 trailers – using its platform. To date, it has “helped to digitalize the movements” of the equivalent of over 150,000 20-foot shipping containers containing 2.5 million tons of cargo.

A Haulio spokesperson told Tech in Asia that the startup will use the funds for international expansion, with plans to launch in Indonesia and Thailand by 2020.

It will also build new solutions for the container shipping and haulage industry, following the introduction of its mobile port messaging system, the Haulio Connectivity System, in February.

“Haulio will be tapping into ComfortDelGro’s expertise and resources in engineering and fleet management, as well as partnering them to provide vehicle leasing as a solution for the haulage community,” the spokesperson said.