Building Digital Bharat: The Story Behind Pidge Pidge is a next-generation logistics platform which also offers an interoperable hybrid network of 3PL delivery partners, and empowers businesses to digitize, aggregate and elevate the delivery experience.
By Kabir Singh Bhandari •
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
You're reading Entrepreneur India, an international franchise of Entrepreneur Media.
Pidge is a next-generation logistics platform which also offers an interoperable hybrid network of 3PL delivery partners, and empowers businesses to digitize, aggregate and elevate the delivery experience. Built on the pillars of functional design, simplified technology, and smart innovation, Pidge aims to build a strong Digital Bharat by building digital inclusiveness.
While making the Pidge logistic platform, they focused on two things: How can they make technology more accessible to SMEs to encourage greater tech adoption while effectively managing their logistics operations and the need to digitize the huge unorganized logistics network and provide businesses with access to more delivery partners to ensure that no demand goes unfulfilled.
"When we entered the Indian logistics market, we identified several challenges: a lack of quick access to delivery partners, very limited tech adoption, and last-mile delivery issues. We initially focused on improving last-mile delivery efficiency, pioneering radius-free, and same-day deliveries in India. We take pride in being the only company that enables premium 5-star delivery services and have facilitated over 1 Crore deliveries by onboarding over 5,000 businesses and creating a network of approximately 5 lakh users. We are dedicated to empowering unorganized small and medium businesses to digitize, aggregate, and deliver through a single logistics platform. For example, we assisted Pro ecom Logistics, a one-man delivery startup, in scaling up tenfold within six months through our technology. With our technology, Riding Rangers, a hyperlocal delivery company based in Delhi, increased its business by 15% within two months. We have established a hybrid interoperable delivery network comprising more than 50,000 in-house fleet members and 30+ third-party delivery partners, serving over 200 cities," Ratnesh Verma, Founder and CEO, Pidge told us.
But what are the biggest challenges apart from operational problems in business, and how can someone overcome them?
According to Verma, the existing supply and delivery solutions in the market were highly polarized. The entire logistic ecosystem works in silos with multiple layers and middlemen forcing businesses to make specific decisions and limiting their options. For example, if a business partnered with platform A, it couldn't seamlessly work with platform B in an interoperable manner. The lack of acceptance towards hybrid ways of working posed a significant challenge to them.
To address this issue, they took the initiative to test and validate their solution. "We created our hybrid network, incorporating various delivery options such as our riders, unorganized partners, and 3PL networks. This allowed us to demonstrate the benefits of this approach and provide businesses with the freedom to choose hybrid delivery options. The success of this endeavour is evident in the impressive milestone of over 6 million deliveries and the achievement of gross margin positivity," Verma said.
Fact Sheet:
Year of inception: 2019
No. of employees: 60
Revenue for FY 2021-22: $1.1 Mn
External funding received so far: $1 Mn from Indian Angel Network, $3 Mn (Pre-series A round) lead by European VC Mountain Partners
The author can be reached at bkabir@entrepreneurindia.com and Instagram.com/kabirsinghbhandari
