Whether it's for personal purposes or the logistics of a company, trucks are essential to transport goods in bulk from one place to another. For companies, ensuring the efficiency of logistics is a must to keep the business running smoothly. Goods moving smoothly from one place to another depends a lot on trucking and logistics. To that end, logistics is critical for a country. But when it comes to hiring a truck, we all know how challenging an experience it is for most people, especially when one does not have any or little idea about truck renting.
This however is changing slowly. As the internet penetration in Bangladesh grows and a growing number of consumers get used to digital services, we are seeing a new generation of digital trucking startups looking to make the trucking service more accessible by digitizing the whole truck hiring process.
Take Truck Lagbe, one of the leaders in the digital trunking vertical, anyone can hire a truck from anyplace any time through using the Truck Lagbe app or calling their customer service number. Digitization of trucking service has also made it easier for the truck owners and drivers to get trips and improves efficiency for everyone involved.,. Truck Lagbe is one of the companies in the vertical. We have seen an influx of new companies in the digital trucking space in the past few years. These are some of the companies we have been following in the space.
1. Truck Lagbe
Founder: Anayet Rashid and Mir Hossain Ekram
Founded in: 2017
Headquarter: Dhaka
Investment raised so far: Undisclosed
Team size: 100+ (LinkedIn)
Truck Lagbe, founded by Anayet Rashid and Mir Hossain Ekram, is a Dhaka-based startup that aims to make the truck hiring service in Bangladesh more convenient by connecting the truck owners and shippers through their app. Even before launching officially, the startup won the first prize in the 'Startup Challenge 2017' competition.
In an interview with Future Startup, Anayet Rashid said, the idea of Truck Lagbe came from a personal experience when he saw that hiring a truck for transporting goods costs more than transporting via one's trucks. Hence he decided to build a platform that will connect the truck owners and the shippers that will help improve the efficiency for both parties. The company has since evolved and launched multiple iterations of its platform. Today, Truck Lagbe has a fast-growing marketplace business where it predominantly works with B2C customers and SMEs and a brokerage business where it works with large enterprises.
Truck Lagbe launched a new version of its app in November last year and introduced a series of interesting features such as fixed pricing, uber-like truck matching — the company says, it takes only 3 seconds to match a truck and improved discovery and navigation for users. The company has also introduced fixed prices where customers can hire trucks for a fixed price without the hassle of price bargaining. It also offers spot pricing to corporates and B2B businesses. Over the past years, Truck Lagbe has built excellent liquidity of vehicles on its platform. The company now aims to bring other products and services related to trucking such as tier, oil, GPS tracker, etc to its platform.
Read our coverage of Truck Lagbe to understand more about Truck Lagbe.
2. Shohoz Truck
Founder: Maliha M Quadir
Founded in: 2014
Headquarter: Dhaka
Investment raised so far: Undisclosed
Team size: 300
Shohoz Truck, which started its journey in 2019, is an online platform for hiring trucks and is working to digitize the truck hiring service of Bangladesh making it easier for anyone to avail trucking service from anywhere and anytime. Individuals, as well as companies, can hire trucks via this platform.
According to The Daily Star, Shohoz Truck has partnered with more than 2000 truck agencies of Bangladesh and more than 30k vehicles are available under this platform. Recently, Shohoz Truck has partnered up with Paperfly to provide them with logistics solutions.
3. Truck Kothay
Founder: Monico Technologies Ltd.
Founded in: 2017
Headquarter: Dhaka
Investment raised so far: Undisclosed
Team size: Unknown
Another platform for hiring trucks in Bangladesh is Truck Kothay. It is a service of Monico Technologies Ltd. At present, approximately 5000 trucks are connected via this platform and their service is available throughout the country.
One of the services provided by Truck Kothay is the 'Online Bidding' feature for truck owners, where a truck owner can submit his fare by bidding for order and getting a trip. The customer care service of Truck Kothay is available 24/7. The customers can hire trucks anytime via the website or app or phone on this platform.
4. Loop Freight
Founder: Christopher Li, Fahim Salam, Rajib Das, Wasim Zaman
Founded in: 2018
Headquarter: Dhaka
Investment raised so far: Undisclosed
Team size: 50 (LinkedIn)
Loop Freight, launched in 2018, is an online trucking startup that aims to provide hassle-free logistics support systems for its customers. According to The Business Standard, the platform not only just provides efficient transportation service, but also ease of accessibility by transporting goods according to the shippers' preferred schedule with a short lead time and real-time shipment tracking facility. Loop Freight works with truck owners and keeps track of the fleets.
They have two pricing methods: contractual and market-price. The app of Loop can estimate the price in accordance with the customer's preference. A TBS report says the company grew 125% during the COVID-19 pandemic, as the demand for trucking service rose during this period.
Founder: Alamgir Alvi
Founded in: 2018
Headquarter: Dhaka
Investment raised so far: Undisclosed
Team size: Unknown
Goods in motion (GIM) is one of the fast-growing digital trucking startups in Dhaka. The company calls itself a truck rental app that connects shippers and carriers through a digital platform. Founded by Alamgir Alvi, GIM is Part of Jogajog Limited. Officially launched in April 2018, the company has seen excellent growth and claims to have over 14,000 vehicles on its platform and has served more than 3000 customers including large enterprises such as PRAN, Lafarge-Holcim Bangladesh Limited, ACI Limited, Shah Cement, Abul Khair, BEOL, ACI, BSRM, KSRM, Aziz Group, etc.
6. Sheba.xyz
Founder: Adnan Imtiaz Halim, Ilmul Haque Sajib and Abu Naser Md. Shoaib
Founded in: 2015
Headquarter: Dhaka
Investment raised so far: Undisclosed
Team size: 200+
Besides its other services, trucking service is also available on Sheba's platform. Anyone can hire trucks and get an estimated price for this service via the Sheba platform. For small trips, the estimated price is given over the phone and in case of large shipment, the platform provides an 'Estimated Cost of Services. Sheba provides the complete solution for shipping goods, from loading the goods to unloading the goods upon reaching the destination. Like its other services, payment through EMI is also available for its trucking service.
