CarPal wants to help smaller businesses compete with e-commerce giants such as Lazada and Amazon

Singapore logistics startup CarPal has raised S$3.83 million (US$2.75 million) in a round led by new private equity participants, and the existing investor, RB Investments. It previously raised S$1 million (US$717,000) in a pre-Series A round back in 2016.

CarPal will use the newly-raised capital to expand into new markets in Southeast Asia and grow its sales and R&D team.

Launched in 2014, CarPal provides on-demand last mile logistics services for a range of verticals including (full-service) logistics providers, parcel delivery services, food delivery services. Customers can also use it to deliver sensitive and personal documents.

Also Read: Transport startup CarPal helps merchants deliver 18 hours a day

Among its early customers are 12 Cupcakes, Emicakes, Cedele and Grain. These businesses use and pay for CarPal Fleet via volume-based pricing.

What is unique about CarPal is that around 70 per cent of its drivers are those who also ply the roads for ride-sharing apps Uber and GrabTaxi, and those with flexible schedules such as real estate agents and sales agents. They receive rewards — in the form of higher fees — based on how fast they accept job postings. Currently there are about 10,000 drivers on the platform.

CarPal also announced the launch of its SaaS delivery management platform CarPal Fleet. This allows businesses to build their own delivery fleet, which consists of in-house and in-house and third-party drivers, without having to purchase any vehicles or hire additional staff.

“Over the past few years we learned that many of our customers wish to build their own fleet of drivers. This is mainly due to specific requirements or SOP. Hence launching a product to give customers full control over the delivery operations made a lot of sense.” said Maarten Hemmes, founder and CEO of CarPal, in an official press statement.

Their goal is to help smaller businesses compete with e-commerce giants such as Amazon, Lazada and Zalora, which own large in-house delivery fleets.

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Image Credit: CarPal

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