BlackBuck receives second tranche of Series D round worth $36 Mn from Accel & B Capital

Logistics startup BlackBuck has received the second tranche of its ongoing $150 million funding round. Not just that, it now looks like the firm is right next to Rivigo in the Unicorn race.

Less than a month ago, BlackBuck had kicked off this Series D round with a $43.84 million investment from Goldman Sachs and B Capital.

Now, in a latest RoC filing with MCA made by the company, it has been revealed that the company has picked up another tranche of the round from Accel and two arms of B Capital.

Accel has poured in the same amount as Goldman Sachs did in the last tranche - Rs 214.11 crore ($31 million approx). While B Capital Asia fund poured in Rs 89.21 crore ($13 million) last time, this time the Asia arm only invested Rs 1.36 crore while the VCs Global fund poured in Rs 34.32 crore ($5 million).

This tranche total hence becomes $36.29 million (Rs 249.79 crore) taking the total fund raised in this round to $80.13 million (Rs 553.1 crore).

However, with every tranche, the money raised by the company isn’t the only thing that has been increasing. The valuation of the company is also inching closer to that $1 billion figure.

As per the last official valuation report of the company, equity value on December 31, 2018, stood at $844 million. In the last tranche, this valuation shot up to $872.85-900.89 million*.

Now with the latest tranche, the valuation has reached $913.71-941.89 million*. If look at the higher value it is very close to what Rivigo’s valuation was for the last round - $947.8 million. Since the round is still going on, and another $70 million is expected to come in, it is clear the BlackBuck’s value will surpass Rivigo’s and is highly probable to cross the $1 billion mark as well.

Out of the remaining $70 million, Business Standard reported that International Finance Corp, a World Bank Group unit is going to invest $10. Rest of the amount will be poured in by other existing investors including Sequoia Capital.

This $150 million figure is a tentative and the round can go beyond that as well.

With this round, BlackBuck plans to help its core freight marketplace operations in the country. Claiming an association of 2 lakh truck owners, the company plans to offer ancillary services to these truckers. This plan also includes the provision of financial services like working credit, short term loans, and vehicle finance.

This plan rides on the company’s attempts to score a Non-Banking Financial services (NBFC) license from the RBI to lend from its own balance sheets. After this is done, lenders will be able to join the platform and finance - individually or collectively - truckers with loans and insurances.

All of this again will be based on the data that is being garnered by BlackBuck via the pre payment feature at tools and petrol pumps.

*The valuation is within range due to a difference between the number of shares actually issued by the firm and the number of diluted outstanding shares that the firm used as a basis in December valuation.