Logistics firm Fortigo expects to double revenue to Rs 200 crore this fiscal

Logistics firm Fortigo, which has around 2 lakh trucks on its platform, hopes to double its revenue to Rs 200 crore this fiscal as it expects at least 30 per cent of trucks, majorly non-fleet operators, going off the roads, leaving mostly organised players in the field.

Logistics firm Fortigo, which has around 2 lakh trucks on its platform, hopes to double its revenue to Rs 200 crore this fiscal as it expects at least 30 per cent of trucks, majorly non-fleet operators, going off the roads, leaving mostly organised players in the field. Infosys Chairman Nandan Nilekani's family office and private equity firm Accel Partners own around half of the equity of the Bengaluru-based start-up (rest is held by promoters). The firm on-boards long-distance trucks with an average distance of 250 km and has under-10 per cent or a little over 2 lakh trucks registered on its platform now.

The total number of trucks in the country is over 40 lakh, of which commercial ones are a little over half with the other half being used for farming and other non-commercial activities. Fortigo competes with Blackbuck, which has over 3 lakh trucks on its platform, and Rivigo, which is small with around 30,000 trucks on-boarded.

The company, which offers its services to trucks for free, closed the last financial year with Rs 100 crore revenue and expects to double it to Rs 200 by March, its co-founder and Managing Director Anjani Mandal told PTI. He added that the firm expects post-monsoon pent-up demand to pick up and the lockdown-whacked small players to shut operations.

Mandal also said that being asset-light and capital efficient has helped it move closer to break-even which he expects by the end of the current fiscal. His optimism comes from the pick-up he expects from the mined metals, construction and fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) after the gradual lifting of the lockdowns and the expected resumption of construction activities after the monsoons.

However, he admitted that the business was almost washed out in the first four months of the current financial year. The platform provides matching supply to demand of trucks in real time based on the location, truck and load characteristics to minimise idle time and maximise utilisation.

A third of his business comes from FMCG and food players, he said. On the short-to-medium-term future of the commercial fleet industry, he said that at least a third of the over 20 lakh trucks will wind up by December as the rates have fallen drastically since the lockdowns. He added that utilisation levels have also been at a nadir for too long now, and the industry will be mostly dominated by organised players, which though is good for his business.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)