Logistics is one of the most sought after industries in India. Report suggests that this industry in India is prophesied to be worth $215 billion by 2020-21 at 10% CAGR. Also, with time, the number of companies that have emerged in this sector has increased.
One such company that is making a massive impact in this sector is Ezyhaul, a Singapore-based machine learning-driven logistics company. To know more about the Ezyhaul and how it is making the best out of technology like ML to stay on top of their game, we go in touch with Mudasar Mohamed, Co-Founder and COO at Ezyhaul.
The Journey
Started out in 2016 by Mudasar Mohamed, Raymond Gillon, and Nicky Lum, Ezyhaul is an on-demand freight exchange platform that serves in India, Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand. The platform connects shippers with pre-qualified and reliable domestic carriers who have unutilized capacity on their trucks.
Since inception, the company has managed to provide world-class transportation services and has gained a lot of traction. Today, it has over 1,000 shippers and over 30,000 trucks registered in its platform for quick, efficient, reliable, and cost-effective transportation for both domestic and cross-border needs. The company has also recently won the Accenture-Freight & Logistics ASEAN Innovator Award.
Talking about funding, initially, the company was bootstrapped. “We quite our comfortable jobs and worked on our vision without salary for a year,” said Mudasar. “It was a tough decision. We even had to explain to our families, why we would do that.”
However, having served in some of the senior roles in the industry, the trio over the years has built a network with other senior leaders and has managed to connect with folks who trusted their vision and were ready to invest.
The first round of funding was $800,000 from angel investors and this helped them in expanding their business in Malaysia for a year and a half. The next round was $5 Million Series A funding and recently, the company has managed to bag $16 million as a Series B funding.
Role Of Machine Learning
Talking about the technology side, Ezyhaul makes use of its proprietary machine learning algorithm that helps in different aspects of their business. For example, one of the algorithms that Ezyhaul has created takes care of the company’s pricing aspect as well as route and lane. When asked about the data set, Mudasar explained that they have a data set that is historically rich and with a benchmark to learn upon. Therefore, the algorithm keeps learning and is just getting better and better with time.
“So, the more data we capture the more we feed that data to our machine learning algorithm, and it keeps getting improved,” said Mudasar.
Other Tech Aspects
Being a logistics company, it is important to have a strong tech stack to take care of the routes and the tracking of fleets. And Ezyhaul has got it sorted as well. For the route, the company has a dynamic route optimization which is built in-house. Talking about how this route optimization works, Mudasar explained through an example.
If someone wants to ship 500 orders, all they have to do is dump the file to the company with the order details such as the pickup destination and the drop location. They don’t have to worry about the number of trucks and which route the trucks will take. And this is where the route optimization kicks in. The route optimization converts that entire order file into multiple job type. And the best thing about this system is that each job type would have a different truck, truck type, route, number of stops etc. within the defined parameters.
When asked about the tracking process, Mudasar said the truck drivers are given an app on their smartphones, which they use to keep the status updated about the shipments, location etc. However, when it comes to drivers without a smartphone, Ezyhaul uses the triangulation of the driver’s mobile phone cellular network and tracks the location.
That is not all; Ezyhaul has also taken extra steps to make it easier for drivers. The company has partnered with multiple telecoms that helps in getting drivers discounts on handsets and data.
Dealing With Talent Crunch
When asked how Ezyhaul deals with talent crunch, Mudasar said that most of the folks from the engineering and technology domain are based in Malaysia and finding the right talent there wasn’t a challenge.
Rather, it has helped the company to launch in India. Furthermore, Ezyhaul is also looking forward to setting up an engineering centre in Bangalore.
The Roadmap Ahead
Looking into the future, Mudasar said that the prime vision of Ezyhaul is to become the leading platform of South and Southeast Asia. He also believes that the company has already seen massive growth and it is going to continue year by year.
“We don’t want to be a unicorn — that’s not our aim. Since the get-go, we have not only been a profitable business but also delivering significant value to our industry we serve,” Mudasar said in conclusion.
