Abu Dhabi, UAE-based TruKKer, a digital freight platform, on Thursday, announced that the company has raised $10 million as strategic venture debt from San Francisco, US-based lending firm, Partners for Growth (PFG). This is notably the first deal for PFG in the MENA region.
The company said that the fresh capital will be used to finance the working capital needs. In November 2019, TruKKer last raised a whopping $23 million sum in Series A round led by Endeavor Catalyst, IFC (International Finance Corporation – World Bank), ILIAD Partners, OTF Jasoor, RTF, Shorooq Partners, and STV.
Founded in 2016 by Gaurav Biswas, Pradeep Mallavarapu, TruKKer is a technology-enabled truck aggregator that operates multiple truck types for multiple end markets. It delivers innovation to trucking with on-demand aggregation, with automated booking, real-time tracking of trucks, smart asset utilization, and cost-efficiency. The company claims that it has a fleet of over 25,000 trucks and over 500 B2B customers on its platform.
Technology companies like this are improving a part of the trucking industry for the better. As time goes on, who knows what they or other companies may be able to do to further improve it. Many areas could see improvements, one, in particular, being the rate of accidents truck drivers experience. Truck accidents are most commonly caused by driver error – you can find more here on the matter. In the future, this could be reduced with the right technology. It is just a matter of who will get there first and how.
Related Read: Top-funded Delivery & Logistics Startups in MENA – FY20
Speaking of the development, Amit Agarwal, Group CFO of TruKKer, in a statement said,
“We are disrupting a very fragmented industry, both operationally and commercially, by using advanced data science and technology tools. One of our essential capabilities is the ability to finance instant payments to the small transporters and owner-operators while offering standard credit terms for enterprise clients. We have a very diverse and high-quality client base with three years of consistent payment cycles. Having demonstrated performance and substantial growth, financing our expanding working capital needs with a structured debt facility was an obvious next step for us. We are very happy and proud to have a world-class institution like PFG on board,”
Speaking of the USPs if TruKKer, Agarwal further added,
“We are proud to be in a position to finance this very enterprising and hard-working group that currently faces unorganized processes and poor access to conventional financing products. TruKKer’s core business and technology offer key data-driven metrics that allow us to service their needs in a mutually beneficial way.”
Jason Geogatos, PFG’s Managing Director said,
“TruKKer offers a very interesting proposition for a debt fund to support a diverse and growing portfolio of debtors with a custom facility tailored to enable the company’s rapid expansion. We are very excited about working with the TruKKer team to provide capital to help them scale their impressive platform harnessing the trend of increasing technological adoption to deliver efficiencies across the massive freight industry across the Middle East. We will continue to work with TruKKer to support their rapid growth and hope to work with other emerging technology companies as we get familiar with the MENA markets, and build strong relationships in the region.”
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