Rivigo, a tech-enabled logistics startup bets big on driver relay system for faster delivery

While we have taxi aggregators working at making daily commute smoother for users and drivers, a startup called Rivigo is working at bringing a smoother experience at transportation of goods. When goods are transported from one part of the country to other, there is bound to be some damage. Deepak Garg, founder of Rivigo explains that a truck travelling 2,150 km from Kolkata to Mumbai takes about eight days on an average. It faces numerous delays and about 40 percent of perishable products get spoiled before the delivery. Moreover, drivers spend a lot of time on roads and away from families. Rivigo wants to change the way India moves the freight. In fact, Garg went on a 30 day road trip to understand the pain points of drivers across cities and villages. That’s what led him to create the ‘Driver Relay Model’ as one of the consistent problem has been staying away from home for days. “Our drivers do not spend more than a day on the road while most truck drivers in other transport companies spend around 25 days in a month away from home. We introduced ‘Driver Relay Model’ by making sure drivers get back home on the same day (or within 24 hours), thereby saving 50 to 70 per cent of the turnaround time on long-haul routes,” he said. Deepak Garg, a B. Tech from IIT Kanpur and an MBA from IIM Lucknow, has put in place proprietary technologies with Rivigo. Prior to Rivigo, he spent 8 years with global consulting firm McKinsey & co. The startup now has close to 1000 people, with 18 employees forming the core team. It has vehicles fitted with GPS that help the startup track and locate all its vehicles. And another highlight is the Driver Relay model that ensures drivers get back home on the same day. Moreover, there are simple apps that help drivers leverage technology for further ease. “Other logistics players take eight days to move goods from New Delhi to Chennai while we take just two days. This ensures a huge cutback in inventory costs and makes the supply chain leaner. Companies transporting emergency goods by air or rail can use surface transport at nominal costs. As a consequence, the trucking or logistical network becomes more reliable and many customers are much benefited. They can work on their month-end shipments much later and can get higher quality market access,” he explains. It is technology that plays a huge role in these hand-offs. The company has heavily invested in getting data like fuel, RPM, engine oil temperature, brake oil pressure from the vehicles on a real-time basis. The data is then processed to aid help with decision-making for predictive maintenance and mileage improvement, Garg said. Rivigo is also working with a global team of Wabco to in bring in anti-collision devices in their trucks too. It has clients across segments such as FMCG, apparels, electronics and so on.  Rivigo Green is the cold chain offering, Rivigo Zoom is our part load segment. “Besides, we have deployed a comprehensive ‘closed loop temperature integrity model’ to achieve 100% adherence to temperature norms in cold chains. Through this model, Rivigo not only restricts drivers from changing temperature settings but also empowers the clients to monitor and control the temperature from their hand held devices,” he adds. Garg tells us that unprecedented delivery times, high reliability and precision and complete transparency with customers is what sets it apart from others.  Commenting on the recent GST bill, Garg said that Rivigo can play a huge role at cutting down the transportation time as companies will no longer need warehousing in different states. The company signs a direct contract with customers for its logistics services and charges price for the Rivigo has raised about $40 million in largely equity financing till date. Its roadmap includes expanding from 1,200 trucks to 3,000 trucks by the end of this fiscal.