Logistics startup BlackBuck has closed a $150 million round of equity funding, which is approximately Rs 1,050 crore, the company announced on Wednesday.

The round was led by Goldman Sachs Investment Partners and Silicon Valley-based Accel, along with Wellington, Sequoia Capital, B Capital and LightStreet.

The round also saw participation from existing investors Sands Capital and International Finance Corporation, the investment arm of the World Bank. This takes the total amount of funds raised by the company to over $230 million.

Blackbuck is set to let employees liquidate part of their stock in the company, giving them access to liquidating 25 percent of their total vested stocks. This is the second time BlackBuck is executing a stock liquidation event for the employees of the company, the first one being in 2017.

Over the last 4 years, the company’s employee stock option (ESOP) plan has created a cumulative value of over $43 million (Rs 300 crore).

Currently, BlackBuck has over 300,000 trucks and over 60,000 fleet owners on its platform, said it will deploy the funds for on-boarding new trucking partners. The company is also set to invest more in product and data sciences capabilities in order to enable more efficient freight matching processes.

"With this round of financing, we will invest to deepen our presence across the national market. Significant investments will be made into product development and data sciences, both these dimensions are core to BlackBuck’s marketplace approach," said Rajesh Yabaji, chief executive officer, BlackBuck.

Founded in 2015, BlackBuck uses technology to match a trucker with a shipper real-time, enabling transparency, higher truck utilisation, better shipper services levels, and efficient pricing. It also facilitates services around trucking, by providing fleet cards, tyres, IoT, insurance and working capital credit to truckers.

"We see enormous potential for innovation in the full truckload logistics market in India,” said Sami Ahmad, head of Asia for Goldman Sachs Investment Partners Venture Capital & Growth Equity team.

"Currently, the market is fragmented and inefficient due to highly manual and opaque processes, leading to poor experiences for stakeholders across the value chain. We believe that with its technology-enabled approach to logistics and associated services, Blackbuck is well positioned to better serve the needs of shippers, fleet owners, and truck drivers," Ahmad said.

First Published:May 1, 2019 6:10 PM IST