Online trucking platform BlackBuck has raised $67 million in a funding round led by Silicon Valley-based venture fund Tribe Capital, IFC Emerging Asia Fund and VEF. Existing investors Wellington Management, Sands Capital, and IFC—the World Bank’s investment arm—also participated in the round. The Bengaluru-based startup has been valued at more than $1 billion post-money and has become the 16th Indian startup to enter the coveted unicorn club—privately held companies with a valuation of $1 billion or more. BlackBuck will use the fresh funds to expand and launch new service offerings for its customers.
The company will use the money to invest heavily in product and data science capabilities to strive for better efficiency in freight matching for the Indian trucking ecosystem. The company has seen a shift in demand, with most of it coming from small businesses, brokers and large-scale outfits as against major enterprises before. The fund made its first India investment last year when it backed logistics aggregator Shiprocket. The Silicon Valley-based investment firm was founded by former executives of Chamath Palihapitiya’s Social Capital. Founded in 2015, BlackBuck digitises fleet operations for truckers and operates a marketplace to help match trucks with relevant loads. The platform has nearly 700,000 truckers and more than 1.2 million trucks on its platform clocking over 15 million monthly transactions. It has raised nearly $300 million since inception through equity and debt funding. Accel, Apoletto Asia, B Capital, Flipkart and Goldman Sachs are some of its other investors.