Yangon-based on-demand trucking start-up, Kone Si has received a six-digit investment for nationwide expansion from Yangon Capital Partners (YCP), a Myanmar-focused venture capital under Trust Venture Partners, a local financial advisory firm, and Nest Tech– a Vietnam-based venture capital company as reported by local media.
This is the second round of investment for Kone Si after it initially received pre-seed funding from Phandeeyar in 2017, which has invested in Kone Si and 16 other local companies since 2016.
The start-up is planning to use the new funding to boost its technology platform, acquire talent, and expand to other commercial cities around the country to strengthen its user base.
A Top 100 contender, the ecosystem of Kone Si comprises more than 100 business shippers and over 2000 truckers; it also has an average month over month sales growth of 30 percent.
Ma Zar Phyu Tint Lwint, CEO of Kone Si said that in addition to understanding the power paradigm between the customers and truck suppliers, knowing the logistics freight flows throughout the year in the country is critical as that can help partner truckers get return loads and operate efficiently.
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Businesses in Myanmar face difficulty in outsourcing transportation to third parties due to unreliability, lack of standardised procedures and non-transparent pricing among truckers, according to Kone Si.
Moreover, due to fluctuating transport pricing controlled by large trucking groups as well as unethical working nature, small fleet owners and individual truckers have to struggle to get regular jobs. Kone Si aims to bridge the gap between shippers and small fleet truckers.
“The services designed by market-savvy management will bring down logistics cost, a bottleneck of business operation across industries, and eventually benefit consumers in Myanmar” said Shinsuke Goto, managing director of YCP.
Just last week, Emerging Markets Entrepreneurs (EME), an early-stage venture capital firm, had also announced during its anniversary celebration on November 20 that it had invested a six-figure and five-figure sum respectively into two local start-ups: Natural Farm Fresh, a local company producing high-quality solar-dried chili powder and other dried products, and Yangon Broom, a home-services firm offering on-demand services including cleaning and ironing to residential homes and businesses.
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