Ninja Van on last-mile logistics in Southeast Asia

Photo credit: Ninja Van.

At a Tech + Talk Fireside chat, organized by General Assembly last Friday evening, I had a chance to learn more about Ninja Van, as well as its CTO Shaun’s opinions on the logistics startup ecosystem in Southeast Asia.

Ninja Van is Southeast Asia’s fastest growing, last-mile logistics company that uses innovative and proprietary technology to expedite transportation. It recently raised $30 million in its series B round, aimed at expanding its logistics network in markets like Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, and the Philippines.

Here are four takeaways from the informative and inspiring session

1. Ninja Van’s competitive advantage

Ninja Van realized that there was no one dominant player in Southeast Asia for last-mile delivery, and it decided to take advantage of this by being early entrants into Southeast Asia’s core markets.

Ninja Van also strategically targeted entry into markets where large ecommerce giants like Lazada and Qoo10 operated in.

Ninja Van founders (left to reight): Shaun Chong, Changwen Lai, Boxian Tan. Photo credit: Ninja Van.

Geocoding is critical to the operations on Ninja Van.

As Ninja Van seeks to differentiate themselves from other last-mile delivery service providers, they took pains in understanding the inefficiencies in a conventional delivery system. Subsequently, they came up with cutting-edge optimization algorithms that enabled Ninja Van to cut costs and deliver top-notch service.

Shaun also mentioned that international logistics firms that specialize in cross-border deliveries are not Ninja Van’s competitors. Instead, when it comes to last-mile delivery within a particular country, these international firms would rather logistic firms like Ninja Van take over.

2. Overcoming challenges

As an established last-mile delivery logistics firm in Singapore, Ninja Van faces varying amounts of deliveries per day.

Managing capacity