IFC invests $2.5m in digital trucking platform Truck Lagbe

International Finance Corporation, a member of the World Bank Group, is providing an equity investment of $2.5 million in the digital trucking platform, Truck Lagbe.

This investment will help Truck Lagbe expand its services and maintain critical supply chains, especially for delivering food and essential items amid the pandemic, said a press release on Monday.

It will also help improve and modernize the logistics sector in Bangladesh.

Truck Lagbe connects people and corporate customers with truck owners and drivers through an app and a website.

Its services help sustain small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and also support livelihoods during the pandemic.

Truck Lagbe is used to book short-haul and long-haul freight trips, with trucks of different sizes, across all 64 districts in Bangladesh.

It is one of the largest e-logistics platforms in Bangladesh catering to over 43,000 unique shippers, with over 20,000 registered trucks.

By leveraging technology, the company matches demand and supply for freight services, offers price transparency, real-time tracking of shipments through GPS technology and maximizes truck utilization, driving efficiencies across the logistics value chain, which reduces greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

"As traditional methods became inaccessible during the Covid-19 pandemic, Truck Lagbe became the go-to platform for thousands of small businesses and truck owners for hiring trucks. This helped them to continue their business,” said Anayet Rashid, Truck Lagbe’s Co-Founder and CEO.

“We are very excited to have IFC as a partner who has already invested in similar startups in other countries. This will help us to expand in every district of Bangladesh along with bringing in various support services to facilitate everyone to move from the fragmented and unorganized local market to our tech-driven logistics platform,” he added.

Nuzhat Anwar, IFC’s Acting Country Manager for Bangladesh, Bhutan and Nepal said, “It is crucial for Bangladesh, which aims to become a middle-income country over the next decade, to have an efficient transport infrastructure and logistics services.”

This provides more support for the shipment of goods during the pandemic, but also help transport exports to markets, Nuzhat added.

“In addition to its financing, IFC is providing the company with the knowledge and innovative support by leveraging insights from previous investments and will be connecting Truck Lagbe to more prospective clients.”

The transport and logistics services market in Bangladesh has a value of $15 billion, equivalent to 6.8 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP).

IFC’s investment will support the expansion of the Truck Lagbe operations, help widen the logistics network in the Bangladesh market, and support the expansion of value-added services for truck owners through the sale of fuel, tyres and lubricants.

Truck Lagbe’s technology platform empowers small truck owners by displaying their available trucks and price quotations, as well as easy access to market information, enabling truck owners to find freight jobs, improve their income and more effectively utilize their trucks.

The Dhaka-based company, Truck Lagbe, won the “Startup Challenge 2017” competition in 2017, organized by the Information and Communication Technology Division of the government of Bangladesh.