Exclusive: Delhi-based truck aggregator Moovo acquires smaller rival GoGoods

OrbitNote Technologies Pvt. Ltd, which runs truck aggregation platform Moovo, has acquired GoGoods Pvt. Ltd, a similar venture focused on intracity transport in Patna and Ranchi, in an all-stock deal.

With the acquisition, Moovo, which has operations in Delhi-NCR, Kanpur, Kolkata and Bhubaneswar, has expanded its network to Bihar and Jharkhand, Anjani Kumar, co-founder of Moovo told  Techcircle.in. Kumar, however, declined to disclose the size of the deal.

"The acquisition was part of our strategy to extend our base to two more cities. Gogoods.in has a stronghold in the Patna and Ranchi markets, so it was favourable for both of us," said Kumar. Moovo will now use its base in Patna and Ranchi to expand its network across Bihar and Jharkhand.

The five-member GoGoods team will join Moovo.

Kumar added that the firm will scout for more such acquisitions to power its expansion across India.

Moovo was founded in December 2014 by Abhishek Anand and Anjani Kumar, alumnus of IIT BHU and IIT Kharagpur, respectively. It runs an online platform to book tempos, mini-trucks as well as 16-tonne heavy commercial vehicles for intercity and intra-city transport. It has a fleet size of more than 7000 trucks on its platform.

Moovo charges 4-20 per cent commission on every transaction, depending on the size of the truck and the distance travelled. Kumar says that 80% of the revenue comes from inter-city transport. It claims to have a run rate of Rs 2.2 crore per month.

Company officials claim the Delhi-based company is growing at 100 per cent month on month. Its clients include Pepsi, Patanjali, Flipkart, Rivigo and others.

Founded in December 2014 by Nishant Kumar and Anurag Satyarth, gogoods.in, a bootstrapped venture, has partnered with more than 500 trucks in Ranchi and Patna.

Moovo.in had last year raised an undisclosed amount in seed funding from cricketer Yuvraj Singh's venture investment fund YouWeCan and a group of other individual angel investors.

This is not the first time that a larger player has acquired a smaller rival to expand its network. Last year, Bangalore-based tech startup Diptab Ventures Pvt. Ltd, which runs a marketplace connecting users to last-mile logistics service providers for intra-city deliveries LetsTransport.in, has acquired Shifter, a similar venture which connects mini-truck owners, for an undisclosed amount.

A bunch of tech startups have come up recently in the logistics space offering various services and investors, too, have been quick to spot the opportunity. In December, BlackBuck raised $25 million in Series B funding from Tiger Global and other investors in one of the biggest deals in the sector. The same month, Delhi-based TruckMandi raised under $2 million in pre-Series A funding in December. In April last year, Mumbai-based online logistics marketplace The Porter raised Rs3 crore from Kae Capital.

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