IIT grads find a silver lining in cloud logistics
Vahak B2B digital platform floated by Karan Shaha and Vikas Chandrawat, onboarded 13,000 users in 1st year and received over 6 lakh users in the last one year
image for illustrative purpose
New Delhi: Cloud innovations and software solutions, in the past two years, took a leap ahead, owing to shift of varied industries towards the digital platforms. While Covid-19 jolted many a profession and industries severely, floating a logistics B2B solution proved to be a silver lining for Karan Shaha, co-founder and CEO of Vahak.
Right after graduation from IIT, Kanpur, in Mechanical Engineering, Karan came across the challenge of logistical solutions back in his hometown of Raipur, Chhattisgarh. "As young graduates, we didn't know much as to how transportation works. To understand the ground reality, we started our own transport company in 2016. And along with transport services, we would also provide GPS solutions to small lorry owners in the market. After generating good amount of revenue in two to three years, we launched Vahak in February 2019," Karan told Bizz Buzz.
The product developed by Karan and fellow IIT-graduate Vikas Chandrawat specialises in cloud transport marketplace for road transport businesses and individual commercial vehicle owners.
What makes their story unique is the timing of launching a digital platform for logistics vehicles at a time when the entire country went under a prolong period of lockdown back in 2020. "Unlike other segments, we experienced high demand and rapid growth once we formally launched our business on April 28, 2020. During the lockdown, we saw huge surge of activities on our platform, and we were a way for these lorry owners and SMEs to find logistics vehicles from their homes, at a time when people could not go to their offices and reach out to their community. Since they could not go offline, they had to come to online solutions," Karan explained.
As per the CEO, the company had onboarded 12,000 to 13,000 users in the first year and in the last one year, received over 6 lakh users to its virtual platform.
"We have 7 lakh SMEs and lorry owners on our platform. We have been receiving demand from all the sectors be it FMCG or manufacturing or all types of industrial machineries. At the cusp of Covid 1st and 2nd wave, we saw surge of material transports for (PPE) kits, testing equipments and beds," Karan said.
The CEO says that occurrence of a pandemic such as Covid, India has seen a paradigm shift in the minds of people towards online services, implementation of GST, and even UPI payments. The company capital started with a Rs50 lakh investment from an Indian Angel investor in Raipur back in 2020 and as of now in 2021, the company has raised $5 million in a Pre-Series A funding round led by RTP Global with participation from Luxor Capital, Leo Capital, and other investors. The company valuation, as of today, stands at $22.3 million dollars as the CEO is gearing up for another funding series in early next year.
While sharing his experience, Karan said that he began his entrepreneurial journey, with his first
company, through the funds received under Central government's Start-Up India initiative. "As a
transport company, we had to get working capital from a bank and at early stage we did receive
support under Start-up India. But as soon as we launched the product, the amount of fund requirement was different. Which is why we went to Venture Capitals and Angel Investors," Karan said.
