Bloomberg September 14 2021: BridgeLinx Technologies, a digital marketplace for freight cargo, has raised $10 million in Pakistan’s largest seed capital investment after starting operations about nine months ago with the goal of consolidating the nation’s fragmented trucking and logistics industry.
The Lahore-based company’s funding round is being led by Harry Stebbingsfrom 20VC, Josh Buckley from Buckley Ventures Ltd. and Indus Valley Capital. Stebbings and Buckley last month led a record $85 million round for Pakistan’s quick-delivery startup, Airlift.
Most goods in Pakistan, the world’s fifth most populous nation, are carried by trucks and not trains. The industry is fragmented and most large companies end up dealing with as many as 40 transport vendors, said Salman Gul, co-founder and chief executive officer at BridgeLinx. The startup seeks to consolidate the marketplace by connecting large manufacturers with trucks. Already, more than a fifth of Pakistan’s top 100 exporters use the service.
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The funding comes as the South Asian nation is seeing record investment in its startup industry with multiple venture capitalists investing for the first time. Pakistan’s startups have raised over $233 million, so far this year. That’s more than the previous six years combined, according to data from venture capital fund, Invest2Innovate.
BridgeLinx has added thousands of truck companies and offers lower fares through bidding between truckers for business and moving thousands of freight loads each week, said Gul.
“It’s a massive market and we have just scratched the surface,” he said. “Initially, we were pulling people on the platform, now they just want to jump on.”
BridgeLinx’s other investors include Wavemaker Partners LLC, Soma Capital Management LLC, Quiet Capital Management LP and TrueSight Ventures Ltd.
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