Lynk Logistics Ltd., a company promoted by Ramco Cements, is planning to enter major metros and raise further funds to fuel its growth.
“Last year, we began operations in Chennai and followed it with Hyderabad two months ago,” said Abinav Raja, co-founder, Lynk Logistics. “Plans are on to enter [other] major metros and Tier-I cities to offer last-mile connectivity to move anything from paper to huge parcels within a city.”
In the past year, the small-truck hailing company, which operates through a mobile app and call centres, has completed 1.5 lakh trips servicing more than 70,000 customers in Chennai and 10,000 in Hyderabad.
“Our focus is on small businesses, hardware merchants and furniture shops to move goods in 1-5 tonnes category from warehouses to godowns to retail outlets, or for individuals from one place to another within the city. This market is huge; so, we are not looking at inter-city,” he said.
Funded by Ramco Cements and with personal funding from the founders, Lynk Logistics is also scouting for further funds to fuel organic growth.
“At present, we have enough funds. We started making profits from the sixth month onwards. We are not looking for any acquisitions,” he said.
“When we started our journey, there were several players offering intra-city logistics solutions in the 1-5 tonne category.
Today, the number of players has shrunk to a handful. We differed from others as we charged customers on the basis of a fare price and journey time. It works as an incentive to drivers as well as to customers,” said Shekar Bhende, co-founder, Lynk Logistics.
Asked what prompted the drivers to join the platform, Mr. Bhende said an active driver was assured of at least 4-5 trips a day leading to earnings of about ₹45,000 a month. This compares with that earlier they used to do 1-2one or two trips a day, earlier. This amount would increase in the days to come with inflation.
On the impact of Goods and Services Tax on logistics sector, Mr. Raja said: “We saw a huge surge in transportation of goods in the last week of June. There is a sudden dip and we hope the situation will be back to normal in the next few days.”
“Earlier, we used to levy 4.3% services tax and this was increased to 5%. Technically, we do not see any change in the pricing,” said Mr. Bhende.
