Management logistics startup for trucks, Ritase announced the Series A funding worth $8.5 million (more than Rp120 billion) led by Golden Gate Ventures. New investors include Jafco Asia and QWC, followed by previous investors Insignia Ventures, Beenext, and Skystar Capital.
Fresh money will be used to tighten up Ritase position in Indonesia, while debuting in the Southeast Asian market.
Ritase‘s CEO, Iman Kusnadi said on this funding, the company is committed to empowering more local logistics on its platform through supply chain finance. Also, greater access to affordable spare parts and trucks through Group Buy features.
“Sustainable and platform improvement are their continuous plan for that will be eventually become a channel to introduce semi-autonomous trucks in Southeast Asia,” he said in an official statement.
Golden Gate Ventures Partner, Hall Justin explained his interest in funding Ritase. For him, when the Indonesian economy grows, a digitalized logistics infrastructure is necessary to meet the couriers and truck drivers demand.
“Ritase will be the cornerstone of digital logistics infrastructure in Indonesia and we are glad to work with Iman [Ritase’s CEO] and his team,” Justin said.
In a previous interview with DailySocial, Iman said this funding will be used to build an R&D office for the autonomous trucking technology development. The Japanese truck manufacturer partner will be involved to realize this ambition.
The business growth is said to be rapid since its debut two years ago. The company is said to facilitate hundreds of deliveries each month using more than 7,500 trucks, 500 transporters, and 7 thousand driver-partners connected to the Ritase app.
A number of company partners who have been using Ritase include Nestle, Unilever, Universal Ribena Corporation (URC), Japfa, Signify, and Lotte. For Nestle, Ritase partnered to fulfill the FMCG industry demand, such as transparency for senders and couriers, digital order processing management, cargo planning, and route optimization.
Ritase provides an open API platform and cloud-based software that allows the sender to access the real-time information from the truck marketplace and the delivery flow.
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Original article is in Indonesian, translated by Kristin Siagian