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Vahak, a Bengaluru-based marketplace for road transport businesses and individual commercial vehicle owners, has raised $5 million in pre-Series A funding. The round was led by RTP Global with participation from Luxor Capital and Leo Capital. 

The other marquee angel investors included Kunal Shah, Founder and CEO, CRED; Jitendra Gupta, Founder and CEO, Jupiter; Vidit Aatrey and Sanjeev Barnwal, Co-founders, Meesho; Mohd Farid, Co-founder, Sharechat; Amrish Rau, CEO, Pine Labs; Harsimarbir Singh, Co-founder, Pristyn Care; Rohit and Kunal Bahl, Co-founders, Snapdeal; and Ravish Naresh, Co-founder and CEO, Khatabook. 

The funding will be used to strengthen Vahak’s team and technological capabilities, and expand its customer and network base. Karan Shaha, Co-founder and CEO, Vahak, said, 

“At Vahak, we are leveraging technology to enable the stakeholders in the transport sector to connect with each other and bring growth. We started out with the vision of addressing the huge trust gap in the logistics space and simplifying things for transporters, agents, and vehicle owners. Going forward, we are looking to strengthen our pan-India presence.” 

As India moves on to become Aatmanirbhar Bharat (self-sufficient India) and a manufacturing hub in sync with the ‘Make in India’ initiative, Vahak aims to ensure the same operational efficiency in the Indian logistics sector through technology integration. 

Vahak is a lean startup that aggregates transport service operators from all over India and already connects to more than half a million trucks across the country. It doesn’t own or operate its own fleet but uses an auction marketplace app which allows customers to directly connect with transporters and truck owners across India and book trucks, trailers, and loads on shared vehicles etc.

The marketplace also helps transporters to create an online brand for their business, generate leads by leveraging a pan-India network, and increase their revenue generation by enabling them to run their vehicles for most days in a month.

Yousif Al-Dujaili, Venture Partner at RTP Global, said,

“Vahak is offering a service that addresses a universal human need in the transport of goods, in one of the largest and fragmented logistics markets in the world. By building an asset and working capital light auction-style marketplace, the team has displayed low operational intensity, ability to scale and business quality we look for in category defining companies.”

The startup claims to have developed a service provider network of truckers covering around 8,000 locations across the country. It manages more than 10,000 daily active loads and the network now covers major transport and logistics hubs across India and is aiming at reaching $1 billion annual GTV in the next 12 months.

Vahak claims to be growing 10X in the past year to over $100M annualized GTV run-rate on only $800,000 raised. Going forward, it is aiming to create a stronger nationwide presence by bringing more than three million truckers to the platform. The company is also looking at leveraging AI and ML technologies for superfast matchmaking and algorithm improvements.