The company has announced its foray into four-wheeler warehouse to hub deliveries with women drivers

Hey Deedee, an all-women last mile logistics services company in India, has secured US$500,000 in pre-seed funding from early-stage investor Metaform Ventures.

The funds will be utilised for expansion of footprint, gaining bandwidth and building technology. Hey Deedee also intends to grow from current four cities to 10 by the end of 2018.

Additionally, the company has announced its foray into four-wheeler warehouse to hub deliveries with women drivers.

“With a mission to train and employ 10,000 women by 2018, Hey Deedee aims to become the largest solution provider for hyperlocals and offers last mile delivery services within the city through its hub and spoke model.This funding will fuel our expansion and leapfrog us into a growth trajectory. We are excited to soon launch our four-wheeler warehouse to hub deliveries with an all women drivers team,” said Co-founder Revathi Roy.

Also Read: Challenging existing fundamentals in logistics and supply chain

Hey Deedee was founded in 2016 by Roy, a serial entrepreneur, along with Jagdish Gothi. The company mobilises women from low-income communities, trains them to drive two-wheelers and has them undertake last mile delivery for companies like Amazon, Pizza Hut, Subway and logistics provider Shadowfax, among others.

The startup has employed 100-plus women drivers to deliver parcels across Mumbai, Nagpur, Pune and Bangalore.

Once a delivery is required to be done, the customer simply has to download and register on the Hey Deedee app, feed in the pick-up and drop-off location, and receive push notifications when the rider has picked up the parcel, is in transit, and has dropped it off securely at the location.

“Hey Deedee not only offers last mile delivery service within the city, hassle-free booking on the application but provides employability for women, with an all-women parcel delivery fleet. Women who are from less privileged socio-economic backgrounds are trained to become riders and thus empowered. Assistance is also provided to them for procurement of a two-wheeler loan to purchase the two-wheelers which offers them skilling and sustainable livelihood,” aded Roy.

“The USP of Hey Deedee is the buildup of the pool of human resources to do this job by skilling the girls in a 30-45 day program. It is also solving a huge problem of urban women unemployment. We currently have 2,000-plus women registered, all under different stages of training, and have 62 riders on the job, in Mumbai, Bangalore, Nagpur and Pune. We currently take both a per delivery model (with Amazon) and a management percentage model (with E-comm Express) and fixed income model in the current growth stage.”

Nilesh Jain, Founder of Metafarm Ventures, said: “We need women at all levels contributing to change the dynamics on reshaping of our economy. An empowered woman is powerful beyond measure and capable beyond description. I chose to back Revathi Roy for her enduring ledership on empowering women in logistics, a fast growing, untapped (women powered) sector with much needed diversity. HeyDeeDee continues to break down walls and defy stereotypes; creating a sector for women empowered logistics, not just logistics but heavy logistics.”

 

 

The post India’s all-women last mile delivery startup Hey Deedee gets US$500K funding appeared first on e27.