Fortigo Network (4TiGO) raises $10m from existing investors in Series A round

ST Bureau

Bangalore

The logistics start-up Fortigo Network, The Truck Network,
announced that it
has secured $10 million in its Series A funding round. The funds were raised
from existing investors, Infosys co-founder and former UIDAI Chairman Nandan
Nilekani and Accel Partners.

Fortigo Network is India’s only freight
exchange platform enabled with live transaction and electronic payments.
Fortigo Network also offers complementing business services and facilities for
the Indian road transport sector to enable the users to improve their
efficiency and profitability. Using the cloud-based platform of Fortigo
Network, consignors, consignees, fleet owners, transport companies and agencies
can exchange information, transact and manage their entire business.

Fortigo Network aims to use the new funds
to enhance the platform as well as fuel expansion of their truck network which
currently has presence in all south-Indian states, south Maharashtra, Gujarat,
Pune, Kolkata, Mumbai and Delhi NCR.

Anjani Mandal,
Co-founder and CEO, Fortigo Network, said,
“With this funding, we will be able to extend the Fortigo Network to a
pan-India level. Our blueprint is to enter and mark our presence in all
the important transport hubs of the country including Guwahati, Jaipur, Raipur,
Nagpur, Lucknow and Kanpurand, the hubs of Orissa, Bihar and Jharkhand over the
next nine months. With this push, we expect to achieve our next milestone of
reaching break-even by December 2018.”

By leveraging its partnerships with Federal Bank and IOCL
(Indian Oil Corporation Limited), Fortigo Network facilitates completely
cashless transactions on its platform and extends working capital benefits to
its members. Additionally, Fortigo Network uses the 800+ networked retail
outlets of IOCL to provide complementary amenities to truck drivers, such as
overnight stay facilities, secure parking, breakdown assistance, fuel
discounts, etc., for greater driver safety and convenience. The additional
financial support will help broaden the multitude of such business services
that are offered to Fortigo Network members.

Vivek Malhotra,
Co-founder and Chief of Strategy and Marketing, Fortigo Network, stated, “We will utilise the fund to build our core
technology further. The user-interface of the platform, which has been designed
using 14 streams of technology, will be augmented and simplified to further
improve the ease-of-use. We are also working on voice activated systems- on
being able to activate by voice and deliver responses in various languages,
according to the users’ preferences. Moreover, we want to facilitate the
technology enablement of small and medium-sized fleet owners in getting onto
the Goods and Services Tax Network (GSTN).”

“With the proposed GST coming
up and growing importance of electronic payments in business transactions, we
expect the Fortigo Network to play a significant role in transforming the
unorganized and fragmented transport industry. As India’s only freight exchange
enabled with transactions, the platform’s electronic payments facility at the
primary as well as secondary levels will enable the industry to adapt to the
new normal in the less-cash, digital economy,” said Subrata Mitra, partner at Accel Partners
India.

Launched in June last year, Fortigo Network expects to grow by
close to 50,000 trucks over the next 2 years.