RAAHO, established in 2017, is raising the standard of what it means to be a freight marketplace by offering more – more capacity, more consistency, and more transparency. With its mission to make Indian truck-based logistics simpler, more efficient, and transparent, it is revolutionizing trucking in India. This benefits not just shippers across India, but also truck owners, drivers, and ultimately the economy and even the environment. The company connects third-party logistics agencies to fleet owners powered by its real-time technology intensive matchmaking algorithm. RAAHO facilitates discovery of trucks assisted by real-time tracking of the shipments and on-time deliveries to all its shippers.
“World over, we have seen online marketplaces disrupt traditional industries by bringing efficiencies of demand & supply and reducing friction by leveraging technology driven network effects and economies of scale. Intercity trucking space in India is one of the last frontiers of largely offline traditional sectors waiting to be disrupted by technology,” says Vinay Bansal, Founder, Inflection Point Ventures, which funded the start-up last year.
Read on to know more about how the company has stamped its authority in the trucking market by growing frugally and doubling its business compared to the pre-Covid figures with profitable unit economics. Founders, Md. Imthiaz Yunus, Muralidharan C, Vipul Sharma, Fahad Abu and Joshua Jebakumar answer our questions.
How would you define your company?
Raaho (est 2017) is India’s fastest-growing marketplace for intercity trucks. Raaho aims to improve the lives of truckers and drivers by leveraging technology and data-science for freight matching. Asset-light and capital-efficient, Raaho has ensured positive unit economics at scale.
What does the space in which you operate look like, in terms of market, products/services, growth etc.
India’s logistics costs clock about 14% of GDP - almost double of the 7% global benchmarks - and India’s intercity trucking alone accounts for USD 100 Bn. Currently less than 1% of the intercity market has been digitized thereby making the opportunity at hand incredibly large.
How will your product/ service help customers/ consumers which is not happening so far in your segment?
Raaho works with third party logistics providers (shippers) and truck owners (truckers) to remove system inefficiencies in an otherwise opaque fragmented and offline industry - an industry plagued by manual freight matching dependent on the 2 lakh offline brokers and the fragmented 12 million trucks (75% of truckers have no more than 5 trucks).
What are the innovative or game changing initiatives that your company has taken in the recent past?
Raaho is fast creating liquidity through its marketplace based instant trucking and tracking solution, and load is available nearby to trucks and trucks are available to nearby shippers within 30 minutes. As a result, monthly utilization of trucks has increased from 7000 Km to 11000 Km. This, at a sizable scale since the distance covered thus far on Raaho’s platform is distance equal to circling the earth 1200 times.
And all this, with a suite of apps (Shipper App, Trucker App, and Driver App) to offer close by discovery, vehicles with verified documents, shippers of credibility, real-time tracking of freight loaded vehicles and instant digital payments.
What do you look forward to in the future?
Raaho wants to positively impact intercity trucking's immediate community of interest which equals 15% of India’s population - that earns livelihood directly or indirectly through trucking. With improved utilization of the asset, Raaho aims to increase the average earnings of truckers and drivers, and this community in turn.
Please add any other aspects of your business not covered in the above questions.
Empty trucks driving back (empty miles) to the origin is estimated to be as high 25% of the trips in the trucking industry and wasted fuel on this is a cost to the environment but within a few years of operations, Raaho has already reduced carbon emission by half a million Kg.
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