Logivan, a Graduate of the Hanoi Founder Institute, recently raised a US$1.75 million Series A round led by Ethos Partners, existing investor Insignia Ventures Partners, and VinaCapital Ventures. According to Kuok Meng Xiong, Managing Partner at Ethos Partners:
Logivan is in an exciting position and is poised to disrupt the trucking industry in Vietnam. We see very similar traits that made other platforms successful: fragmentation on both the supply and demand sides, a high rate of individual ownership of vehicles and excess capacity in the system.
Because of extreme market fragmentation - with over 90% of trucks owned by individual truckers - and the numerous layers of brokers involved in the trucking industry, 70-90% of trucks return empty, there is a massive information asymmetry that Logivan hopes to address with their unique service.
Logivan connects truckload freight with truckers directly to cut waste from the supply chain to cut down on on congestion, pollution, and extremely high logistics costs. Their platform tracks the location of freights and trucks, enabling Logivan to optimise the trucks’ routes and reduce their empty load return rates.
Users can book a truck by accessing Logivan’s online marketplace and fill out such details as the number trucks they need and the type of cargo they are delivering. Once a user has sent their request and agrees on the price estimate, Logivan arranges for the requested number of trucks to be sent to the user in as little as a day.
Currently, the company only accepts first and middle-mile deliveries - like warehouses to distribution centres - and caters to only intercity deliveries. Because Logivan is a strictly B2B service, they only focus on delivering truckloads of heavy freight. According to Logivan’s founder:
Trucking is like the backbone of an economy. Even if we can make trucking 1% more efficient we would be saving traffic jams and pollution and develop Vietnam as a more global and business-friendly environment to start your business.
Despite having only launched last year, Logivan has made considerable progress in such a short amount of time. In November 2017, the company beat nine other Vietnamese tech startups at UberEXCHANGE, a nationwide competition offering a $4,400 prize and two tickets to visit Silicon Valley. In July of this year, Logivan was named the winner of PITCH 2018 at RISE, Web Summit's tech conference in Asia. Also, the company raised a US$600,000 investment from former Sequoia venture partner Yinglan Tan via his new VC fund, Insignia Ventures Partners.
Logivan’s quick success is due in no small part to the company’s founder, Linh Pham, a former Goldman Sachs technology analyst and graduate of Cambridge University, where she majored in entrepreneurship and psychology. Prior to launching Logivan, Pham started Snappetite, a Snapchat-esque mobile platform that finds interesting deals (that disappear in 30 seconds) from local nearby venues like restaurants, bars, and shops. Pham also worked at a manufacturing factory for a year, and it was here that she noticed the problem of empty truck returns, which she observed to be “extremely wasteful and environmentally damaging”. In addition to her role at Logivan, Pham is member of Founders of the Future, an invite-only community of the most promising entrepreneurial talent in technology in Europe.
With the new funding, Logivan plans to expand their logistics services to major cities throughout Vietnam, including Ho Chi Minh City, Hanoi, Hai Phong, and Da Nang. In addition, the company will upgrade their product to serve large corporations and improve their truck tracking and management systems.
