Despite a lack of adequate rail and water freight infrastructure, Adamjee told the media that Pakistan’s $35 billion per year trucking industry is expanding at a 10% annual rate.
In addition to receiving a non-banking financial company (NBFC) licence, Trukkr, a fintech startup for Pakistan’s trucking industry, announced on Tuesday that it had raised $6.4 million in a funding round. Trukkr is special in that it offers fintech to digitise the largely unbanked and undocumented industry.
It provides small- and medium-sized trucking companies in Pakistan with a transport management system and supply chain solutions. Accion Venture Lab in the United States and Sturgeon Capital in London took the lead in the seed funding round.
According to a statement from Startup Trukkr, the round also included investors Peter Findley, Al Zayani Venture Capital, and Haitou Global. The company’s business strategy has been modified for the Pakistani market but is similar to those used by Kargo in Indonesia, Solvento in Mexico, and Kobo 360 in Africa.
Less than 5% of trucking companies using Trukkr’s platform have access to financial services, which means they frequently have to wait up to 90 days for payments, making it difficult for them to pay for costs like fuel, tolls, and truck maintenance.
Trukkr’s CEO and co-founder Sheryar Bawany told media that the company planned to introduce financial products with a “reasonable risk adjusted spread” in comparison to the industry standard Karachi Interbank Offered Rate (KIBOR).
About 20,000 drivers, according to co-founder Mishal Adamjee, work for 100 of the largest companies in the nation, including Shan Foods, Artistic Milliners, International Industries Limited, and Lucky Cement.
Despite a lack of adequate rail and water freight infrastructure, Adamjee told the media that Pakistan’s $35 billion per year trucking industry is expanding at a 10% annual rate. The Covid pandemic, according to investor Accion Venture Lab, demonstrated just how dependent the world is on international supply chains. It said in the statement, “We want to bet on a company striving to address inefficiencies in a market filled with opportunities.
The China Pakistan Economic Corridor is expected to have an immediate impact on the demand for freight transportation, which is expected to double by 2025 and increase six-fold to 600 billion freight tonnes-kilometers by 2050. Truck It In, BridgeLinx, and Freightix are three additional freight marketplace startups in Pakistan.