Kargo, the leading Myanmar-based logistics startup, today announced a USD800k pre-series A financing round led by Cocoon Capital, a Singapore-based, early-stage venture capital fund alongside two business angels.
Kargo was founded in 2016 by Alexander Wicks as a platform to digitise the ordering and matching process for inter-city, long distance logistics trucking and intra-city business to business trucking logistics. Wicks also wanted to improve transparency, availability and accountability across the trucking industry.
The company has developed a comprehensive web and mobile app as well as a state-of-the art logistics platform creating an end-to-end infrastructure for organising both short and long haul trucking. Truck drivers and shippers benefit from Kargo’s unique, user-facing interface which uses a series of proprietary algorithms to make sure goods are shipped swiftly and securely from pick-up to destination.
“Myanmar is the fastest growing economy in Southeast Asia and logistics is a key industry to support this growth,” said Michael Blakey, Managing Partner at Cocoon Capital, who recently joined Kargo’s board of directors. “We believe the Kargo platform has the potential to disrupt the trucking industry, not only in Myanmar but in the region,” he added.
Kargo received the GSM Association Ecosystem Accelerator Fund grant and won the Seedstars Yangon 2017. The startup also represented Myanmar on the world stage at the Seedstars Summit 2018, in Lausanne and was named ‘Best Logistics & Supply Chain Startup’ at the Echelon Top100 competition in Singapore in 2018. Not one to rest on its laurels, Kargo is pursuing further development of its platform and will be using the new funds to expand to markets outside Myanmar in the next 12 months.
“The Myanmar freight market is expected to grow by 300% in the coming years. With such a fragmented logistics market our platform simplifies trucking through one simple dashboard that manages shipments both across Myanmar to other markets in the region,” said CEO and Founder, Alexander Wicks. “At Kargo, we are building an experienced and passionate team committed to solving the big problems in trucking logistics. We improve the livelihoods of both truck drivers and businesses across the region, letting them enjoy the benefits of increased efficiency, quality of service and competitive prices”, he added.
Kargo recently announced a partnership with Yoma Bank, Myanmar’s leading commercial bank. The company is the first client of Yoma Bank and the first business in Myanmar to join the Unsecured SME Financing Scheme. With this influx of funds, Wicks and his team aim to facilitate and implement unprecedented same-day payments to truck drivers on the Kargo platform, boosting their ability to grow their driver and user base and manage invoices.
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