SINGAPORE (May 23): Haulio, a Singapore-based container haulage start-up, has raised $1 million in seed round investment following its pre-seed round of $75,000, which marks the company’s sole prior funding round.
The latest seed round investment is led by PSA International’s corporate venture capital arm PSA unboXed, which previously incubated Haulio; 500 Startups from Silicon Valley; NUS Enterprise, the entrepreneurial arm of National University of Singapore (NUS); and several logistics industry angel investors.
Both PSA unboxed and NUS Enterprise are returning investors which led Haulio’s previous pre-seed round.
In a Wednesday release, Haulio says it intends to use its most recent injection of funds for rapid scaling of its business and targets, and capture the local market to “unite a traditionally fragmented shipping and logistics industry”.
Haulio says it presently has 200 companies aboard its business-to-business (B2B) platform, which it has designed for the container haulage industry to optimise and share resources.
With over 80 hauliers as well as 100 freight forwarders and end-customers, this brings more than 1,000 trucks to the Haulier platform and a daily average of 200 containers for the platform’s users to date.
Alvin Ea, co-founder and CEO of Haulio, says the company targets “unexplored potential with collaborative technology” with its platform to address a “desire in the industry for change”.
This is accomplished by reducing the strain on infrastructure and insufficient facilities which Singapore’s shipping and logistics industry sees during its peak, as well as addressing the problem of underutilisation during lull periods, he adds.
“We’ve only just begun our journey with less than 1% done; the rest of the 4,000 ports in the world awaits,” says Ea.
