WhistleDrive, a technology-enabled employee transportation solutions provider for firms, on Monday said it has forayed into a niche urban mobility market, backed by fleet comprising over 5,000 trucks.
The WhistleTruck business is part of its “new growth strategy, tapping into the rising e-commerce and delivery service businesses, a move [that] will also help offset the severe pandemic impact in the employee transportation business,” a release from the firm said.
Founder Rakesh Munnanooru said for enterprises, the distribution of products has become a complex, competitive logistics process. Particularly with e-commerce, there is an increased necessity in the market for a reliable tech-driven logistics partner to beat inconsistent, unorganised fleets.”
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Seeking to fill this gap and positioning itself as a full-stack logistics solutions company providing technology platform-driven fleet services, WhistleDrive, in the six months since foraying into the logistics services, has onboarded some top brands such as Amazon, Flipkart, Big Basket, Myntra, JSW, Grofers and Delhivery. Noting that the service was being provided in 11 cities, he said “we are currently focusing on mid and last mile deliveries in intracity and intrastate and adding on line haul operations that can be operated within a day”.
In the last six months “we have onboarded more than 5,000 trucks on our platform,” Mr. Munnanooru said.
Prior to the pandemic outbreak, WhistleDrive was a technology-enabled employee transportation firm, providing fleet and employee transportation management software to the corporates 75 clients in four cities and involving 1.5 lakh trips per month. It had raised Series B funding of ₹72 crore in September 2019.
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On employee transportation, the firm said eight months after firms switched to ‘work from home’ there is a growing trend post-Diwali towards work from office (WFO). “There is a spike in cab requirements across all cities and [we] are expecting to get back to their pre-Covid numbers in employee transportation business by March 2021,” Mr. Munnanooru said. The release said the firm is actively hiring domain experts in the logistics industry.