See a disconnect between people and companies that needed to transport products; and the transport companies and freight forwarders. I observed it, fundamentally, in smaller sectors such as family freight, small businesses and removals. I also realized that it is a very fragmented and not very transparent market , says Gonzalo Vila, CEO of Kargho. This is how this company was born, which was created in 2018 by Gonzalo Vila (CEO), Mariano Rodrguez (CTO) and Ramiro Bugari (CIO) and which began operating approximately a month ago. From 2018 until now we have been working on the design of the business model, on the technological development and on everything necessary to have a company with a working end product, says the CEO.
The initial investment made by these entrepreneurs was US $ 150,000, and they project a turnover of US $ 1.5 million for next year. In addition, they estimate to have 30% of the market share in five years.
It is a platform that allows people, businesses and companies that have loads to transport to contract freight, deciding when, how and with whom. The business model is based on alliances with freight forwarders, with the aim of bringing together all its logistics service offers in one place so that users can decide which they consider best to carry out their transfer. At the same time, both freight forwarders and customers can qualify, just like Uber.
The application was developed by a team based in Buenos Aires and offers two service options: Transport for my cargo or Cargo for my transport. The first is intended for users who need to contract a freight service to move a particular load, and the second option points to the freighters, who should follow a registration process to offer as providers inside Kargho.
Problem and solution
Vila is very clear when it comes to exemplifying the problems of the sector: If someone wants to send a mattress to a relative, first of all, they do not know who to call, they do not have a parameter of how much it can cost, nor does he know if the transport driver has a registration or all the documentation of his vehicle in order. It is a disorganized and not very transparent market. With our platform the objective is to organize and provide transparency so that consumers can contract the service with peace of mind and, at the same time, that professional freight forwarders who have everything in order will benefit from being hired , Explain.
But this is not Vila’s first undertaking, Kargho’s CEO has more than 35 years of business experience and founded several companies. At present is president and main shareholder of Geveco SA, firm that represents, imports and exclusively distributes the Dunlop brand of tires, for Argentina and Uruguay. I have over 25 years of logistics experience, not only local but also international. Today we provide a solution to cargo mobility. What we do with this app is connect the parties through technology. That allows us a huge scalability and make it a global business, he acknowledges.
We started less than a month ago and we already have more than 15,000 downloads of the application, and more than 300 freight forwarders, only in CABA. In our country there are more than 100,000 owners of vehicles to transport cargo and thousands of shipments are made per day, Vila lists when he thinks about the potential of this sector. And it clarifies that to join the platform as a driver you must comply with all the documentation required by law, both personal and your vehicle.
Just one click to request a freight
Using it is simple: the person interested in transporting a load must download, free of charge, the application. Then it publishes what must be moved, the day of withdrawal, the range of hours in which the trip must be made, and where the load must be left. For time after the user will receive quotes along with the qualifications of the carriers. You just have to choose between those quotes and pay the price you approved. Once the selection is made, it starts the process of collecting the cargo from the address detailed by the customer to the final destination point where the shipment will be received. The price of the service is set exclusively by the freight forwarder, who then is in charge of agreeing the payment method with the user.
We do not define the price of the carriers, that is decided by the client. In addition, the use of the app is free. We, through an algorithm, add our fee to the freight price. It is not a percentage or a fixed cost, it is calculated automatically based on different variables, Vila clarifies.
This program also allows the user to see in real time where their cargo is and has a chat through which they can communicate with the freight forwarder and the latter also with the customer, in case they have any inconvenience.
Kargho is compatible with iOS and Android devicesIt also has a web page: www.kargho.com that includes a video that shows how the app works. According to the developers, in a short time the website will allow to perform the same functions that can be done today from the mobile application. On the other hand, our system works with Blockchain. How? It is that at the moment the loads are uploaded to the vehicle our application generate QR codes that intersect, and that creates a document that we save in Blockchain. This document works as an additional remittance to the one who delivers the transporter. In this way, through this technology we also safeguard the documentation, Vila details.
Projects and future
We began to operate in the City of Buenos Aires and the metropolitan area but our plan is to arrive before the end of the year to the main cities of the country, and towards the end of the first quarter of 2021 we want to have a presence throughout the country, he says. Furthermore, it reveals that they also want to disembark abroad. For now when 2020 ends they plan to be in Uruguay and within a year have a presence in Paraguay, Bolivia and Chile.
For its part, the platform will also continue adding services. In a short time, it will allow any of the parties to take out insurance for the load or for the vehicle in a few minutes, online and without leaving the application.
Regarding the business projections, the CEO of Kargho considers that it is a market that will grow a lot during the next few years. Electronic commerce underwent a great acceleration during the pandemic, causing many innovations and optimizations that were planned for 10 years from now to occur in just two years. Kargho came to ride the wave of this change, proposing a new business model where the objective is twofold: to expand the portfolio of freight forwarders and connect users with various offers gathered in one place, to simplify their search and hiring. In the not too distant future we hope to be the ones to produce the waves of change, he concludes.
Recent Comments