Masterclass #5: How BlackBuck drove digitization in the complex world of trucking

What this episode covers

BlackBuck may be named after one of the fastest-running native Indian animals but the six-year-old company will tell you that mastering B2B logistics is slow and steady work. The company was founded in 2015 by Rajesh Yabaji, Ramasubramanian B, and Chanakya Hridaya, who came from an enterprise background where they had closely observed the problems of the trucking sector. But there was no easy solution. To make an impact in freight logistics, you had to be pan-India from the get-go. Ultimately, organization and fairness helped them win a uniquely challenging market, where a testbed is the size of a country. Around 70% of India’s truckers are on the app today. BlackBuck managed to take a somewhat bumpy but always exciting route towards unicorn status. In 2021, it raised $67 million as Series E funding, at a valuation of $1 billion. That journey had them solving digital payments and fleet management for truck owners, before they could tackle the issue of matching shippers with trucks. In this part of a series of conversations about marketplaces, supported by Accel, Rajesh Yabaji spoke alongside Anand Daniel, his long-time backer at Accel. They tell Pankaj Mishra about all the questions entrepreneurs should be asking themselves when they build digital marketplaces for complex unorganized sectors.

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