Stock-Trukker
TruKKer's sees the present as being an opportune time to head for the EU. Starting with Poland, the Saudi entity intends to make a further push into Europe for its freight-on-demand services. Image Credit: Supplied

Dubai: The Saudi freight booking portal TruKKer is extending its reach to Poland and Kazakhstan as it makes a push to go wider into the EU markets in the near term. TruKKer’s operations until now had focused on opportunities in Saudi Arabia, the Uae and other Gulf markets.

“Poland and Kazakhstan are strategically located along the Belt and Road route at the crossroads of Eurasia,” said Gaurav Biswas, founder and CEO of TruKKer, which recently received a sizeable funding boost for its latest round. “Poland's convenient transportation, low freight costs, and high logistics performance index, which ranks 28th globally, provide favorable conditions for TruKKer to access European supply.

“And Kazakhstan acts as the circulatory system and regional hub of the surrounding economies - powered by its trade arteries spread across Eastern, Western Europe, and Central Asia.”

TruKKer’s offers just-in-time capacity on board trucks to businesses looking for freight services but who haven’t made booking in advance.

For the expansion, the network’s Turkey operations are ‘scaling substantially’ toward servicing cargo lanes to Kazakhstan and Poland.

"We're already operating active haulages in the MENA markets,” said Pradeep M., co-founder and CTO. “The opportunity in EU and CIS lanes are exciting and we plan to partner with digital marketplaces and also invest in the region while the EU is facing certain economic challenges. We plan to build a strong business during a downturn."

A $100m round
TruKKer closed a $100 million series C funding in September, which was led by Investcorp, the Bahrain private equity firm with $40 billion as assets under management.