Connect India: Boosting last mile connectivity
Last-mile delivery is the Achilles Heel of India’s $17billion e-commerce sector which experts say can cross $100 billion over the next five years.
But this huge potential may not be realised to its hilt as last-mile delivery still remains expensive, inefficient and chaotic.
In this adversity, however, a start-up from Bengaluru has found an opportunity. Connect India, founded in 2014, is trying to address challenges in lastmile delivery through a new model, helping e-commerce firms reach out to smaller towns and rural areas using its Connect India Centres (CICs).
The start-up was founded by Chennai-based logistics experts L.R. Sridhar and Vijay Mahajan.
Sridhar, who has been working in the logistics space for over 40 years, said India’s e-commerce boom offers a huge potential for growth in last mile connectivity, especially in semi-urban and rural India. “Connect India provides 360 degree solution for e-commerce, such as assisted shopping and lastmile delivery. Our CICs include Common Service Centres implemented by the Centre under the National e-Governance Plan, local kirana stores, pharmacies, cyber cafes and so on,” he said.
The advantage is that these local entities understand the neighbourhood very well, said Sridhar.
Connect India works on an entrepreneurial model. Each centre is run by an entrepreneur and is provided with necessary technological aids. These centres act as the local delivery units from where goods are delivered to various addresses in the locality and the entrepreneur gets a commission paid for every shipment going through the centre.
Last April, the company received an initial capital of `32 crore from social impact venture capital firm Aaviskaar. The funds are being used for building a green field distribution network, to run vans and develop the distribution and trace and track technology.
“We started building our network since May this year. Currently, we are present in 2,000 pin codes, across 4,000 centres in 20 states. Our aim is to expand to 26,000 pin codes and reach over 50,000 distribution centres in the next two years," explained Sridhar. The company currently works with major ecommerce players such as Amazon, Flipkart, Shopclues and Naaptol. "Apart from e-commerce sites we are also in discussion with leading banks to distribute credit and debit cards," he said.
With an expanded distribution network, Sridhar claims that the company will be able to deliver goods from any part of the country to any other part in a time definite manner. "In the next quarter we are trying to achieve a revenue of `150 million and from January next year, we target to handle 1,00,000 shipments a day with a revenue of $150 million a month,” said Sridhar. To achieve this, , the company is looking for their next round of funding plan in the next six months.