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JAKARTA, Indonesia, July 4, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Businesses worldwide are shifting their gears to the ASEAN market. This, coupled with the e-commerce boom in Southeast Asia, creates a need of a new era of digital logistics.
"Logistic technological platforms have been proven in economies like China, US and India. However, we believe that they could equally be feasible if not more needed in Southeast Asia," Partner of ZWC Ventures, investor of Ritase, Lok Terrance said.
Lok further highlights that one of the contributing factors to high logistics costs in Indonesia is poor utilization of trucks. As a matter of benchmarking, Europe's truck utilization rate is 200,000 km/year, Thailand is 150,000 km/year, and Indonesia is 50,000 km/year. In relevance to Ritase, Lok believes that, "Ritase being a company that provides a B2B digital transportation system that matches shippers and transporters, could be a formidable player in driving the change that Indonesia's fragmented trucking industry needs. "
Enter Ritase, a startup actively digitalizing the trucking industry in Indonesia. In its short 2 years of operations, Ritase's influence has spanned across the whole Indonesia archipelago and now has a pool of over 7,500 trucks from 500 trucking companies servicing some of the nation's top FMCG companies.
Today, Ritase has successfully secured itself US$8.5 million in Series-A funding to propel its growth further as a leader in the Indonesia trucking industry. The round was led by Golden Gate Ventures (SG), a venture capital established in 2011, with investment portfolios of over 30 companies across more than 7 countries in Asia. Other investors includes Jafco Asia and ZWC Ventures.
Prior to the series A investment, the company received seed and pre-series A funding amounting to US$ 4.4 Million from Insignia Ventures Partners, Mitsubishi Corporation, Beenext, Skystar Capital, Agung Ventures and several Angel Investors.
"Insignia is proud to be an early backer of Ritase," Tan Yinglan, Founding Managing Partner of Insignia Ventures Partners, said. "The strong support that Ritase has amassed from large shippers, transporters and the Indonesia government has led us to believe that the trucking industry in Indonesia is ready to be digitalized. We are delighted that Ritase has become the market leader and continues to improve the lives of Indonesian truckers - through enhanced route optimization, improved pricing efficiency and its streamlined process of matching loads to unutilised trucks."
Hall Justin, Partner at Golden Gate Ventures and lead investor to Ritase's Series A round, also added that he is excited to join Ritase in its journey to become the leading logistics marketplace in Southeast Asia. Hall further adds that, "As Indonesia's economy continues to grow, its existing logistics infrastructure must digitize and scale to meet the evolving demands of shippers and truckers. Ritase will become the cornerstone of Indonesia's digital logistics infrastructure and we are honored to work alongside Iman and his team."
The support of strategic investors and customers has allowed Ritase to earn its place as a well-established Indonesian startup that seamlessly integrates the flow of information between shippers and transporters in a single digital platform. In its 2 years of establishment, the company has already on-boarded internationally renowned brands such as Nestle, Unilever, Universal Ribena Corporation (URC), Japfa, Signify/Phillips Lighting, Lotte and Perfeti Van Melle.
Providing services to companies like Nestle has proven to be invaluable to Ritase's growth in tailoring and refining its platform in a way that best caters to FMCG companies.
Such key features include; providing transparency to both Shippers and Transporters, digital order processing management, load planning and route optimization. In addition, its open-API platform and cloud-based software has enabled shippers to enjoy easy access to real-time information updates of the trucking marketplace and its flow of goods.
Founded by Iman Kusnadi and David Samuel, Ritase employs local talents with domain expertise in creating the latest technology that best supports the trucking ecosystem. Ritase has also signed an exclusive deal with the Indonesian Ministry of Transportation to digitalize weight scales nationwide to help alleviate the country's issue of overloading and over dimension of trucks.
In May 2019, the company received two ISO certifications; ISO 9001:2015 for Quality Management, and ISO 27001:2013 for Information Security Management System (ISMS).
The new investment round will allow Ritase to rise as a leader in digitalizing the trucking industry beyond Indonesia, allowing a full end-to-end supply chain visibility for its customers. Aside from the international expansion, Ritase hopes to empower local transporters in its platform through supply chain financing and greater accessibility to affordable spare parts and trucks through its group buying platform. The continuous growth and refinement of its platform are the building blocks that will allow Ritase to eventually be a channel that introduces semi-autonomous trucking into SEA.
About Ritase
Ritase is a digital logistics service for trucks, with a mobile and desktop application that connects shippers and transporters through a shipment process that can be monitored real-time and a detailed reporting system. Ritase covers shipments in all parts of Indonesia with Java-Sumatra route contributing the most transaction volume. Currently, Ritase facilitates tens of thousands of shipments per month, with more than 7,500 trucks, 500 transporters, and 7,000 partner drivers who are connected to the Ritase app.
If you would like to know more information about Ritase please contact marketing@ritase.com.
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