Comet, a first-of-its-kind marketplace for international freight services, has raised an undisclosed amount in a seed funding round. The investment was lead by India Quotient, the Mumbai-based early stage VC fund. Marquee investor Rajul Garg and founders of BlackBuck —Rajesh Yabaji, Chanakya Hridaya, Ramasubramaniam B and Vishwanathan— have invested in their personal capacity. Other investors include, Dubai-based Nobel House, Sunstone Capital and serial entrepreneur cum angel investor Alok Mittal.
Comet was founded in June 2016 by Chitransh Sahai, Gautam Prem Jain, Ayush Lodhi, and Mehul Katiyar--young IIT-Delhi graduates—who co-founded and sold Plat to Housing.com in June 2015. Comet is a platform for international B2B freight service providers and clients, to manage everything—from booking containers to tracking and custom clearances—all from a single dashboard. It also takes the responsibility to manage all paperwork to ensure seamless end-to-end cargo delivery internationally, through roads, sea and air. The Comet marketplace offers clients, the best rates without hidden charges for international logistics and a technology-enabled system to move, track and manage their cargo across the globe. The company has already seen considerable traction in trade heavy routes like China-to-India and India-to-UAE.
Goods worth $18.7 trillion are moved across the globe every year. Out of this, India trades goods worth $700 billion. A lot of this cargo moves through ships.
“We are creating a centralized system which can coordinate international freight service providers, transport companies, CFS’s (Container freight stations) and customs operations. The idea is to bring down the opacity in the international freight management industry and thus improve time and cost efficiencies,” Co Founder Chitransh Sahai said. “The funding will help us build the team, technology and increase market penetration,” added Sahai.
Madhukar Sinha,Co Founder and Partner, India Quotient said, “International logistics is complex and there is need of transparency in this very large fragmented market. The problem statement was clear and the founder’s ambition to solve the customer experience in international trade using technology and automation got us to back them”.
Co-founders of BlackBuck, which aggregates trucks for inter-city transport, have made a strategic investment in Comet. “We are leaders in enabling customers and operators optimize their logistics, in the road transport business of India. Associating with Comet—which provides seamless global connectivity between road, sea and air—fits perfectly with our proposition of making logistics simple, effective and reliable,” Rajesh Yabaji, Co Founder of BlackBuck, said.
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