Mini truck booking platform Quifers raises $300K from IAN, Smile

Mumbai-based Vonken Technologies Pvt Ltd, which runs logistics tech venture Quifers, has raised $300,000 (Rs 2 crore) from Indian Angel Network (IAN) and consumer internet and media platform Smile Group.

Vikas Agarwal, Vishal Khare and Sanjeev Kakkar have led the round from IAN. Agarwal will join Quifers' board, as per a press statement.

The current round of funding will be used for expediting business expansion to other cities, enhancing the technology platform of its products and services and hiring people to strengthen the core team, it said.

Quifers was co-founded IIT-Roorkee and NITIE alumni Amit Mishra, Amit Bansal and Vaibhav Gupta. Quifers aggregates LCVs (Light Commercial Vehicles) booking through its platform.

"We serve a variety of market segments that includes not only the industry biggies but also small retailers/SMEs and individual consumers," said, Amit Mishra, co-founder, Quifers.

The company claims to acquire 80-100 new customers every week matched up by adding 40-50 vehicles on weekly basis. It plans to develop technology which would provide it an entry into long-haul/inter-city/freight sector.

"We looked at Quifers as a potential disruptor in a high growth area of technology driven logistics services and which will eventually go on to build a highly scalable model using its platform and analytics mechanism," said, Vishal Khare.

A bunch of tech startups has joined the business of connecting logistics services providers with customers for intra-city transport and relocation services in the recent past. These ventures are asset light and do not own the vehicles themselves and come across as booking platforms similar to taxi hailing apps Ola and Uber. Indeed several of them have also raised angel or VC funding.

Pickingo, a B2B on-demand hyperlocal logistics startup, raised $1.3 million from Rehan Yar Khan of Orios Venture Partners along with Zishaan Hayath in August.

In June, on-demand booking platform for mini-trucks Moovo.in raised an undisclosed amount in seed funding from cricketer Yuvraj Singh's venture investment fund YouWeCan and others. Soon thereafter, Bangalore-based theKarrier raised Rs 1.5 crore ($240,000) in a seed round of funding led by Sol Primero.

In April, Mumbai-based Resfeber Labs Pvt Ltd, which runs online logistics marketplace The Porter to book mini-trucks and tempos for intra-city pick-up and deliveries, raised Rs 3 crore (just under $500,000) from Kae Capital. It is now raising a larger Series A funding round.

Last November, Blowhorn raised an undisclosed amount in seed funding from impact investor Unitus Seed Fund, with participation from Tim Draper, founder and managing partner of Draper Associates.