COGOS: Founded in 2016, by Mr. Prasad Sreeram and Dr. Rama Mohan Katta, COGOS, India’s fastest-growing logistics company, has its headquarters located in Bangalore. The venture kicked off with a unified vision of transforming the logistics industry by building a strong, technology-enabled supply chain network. COGOS offers a one-stop destination for intra-city transportation. Startup Reporter recently conducted an interview with Mr. Prasad Sreeram CEO & Co-Founder of COGOS.
Please explain a little about COGOS and its offering.
COGOS is an AI-led leading logistics-tech platform coupled with mobile and control tower capabilities. Their superior workflow is digitally transforming the $70 billion City Logistics, by bringing the capacity discovery time from weeks to minutes and reducing operating costs up to 60% for shippers. In the current gig economy where the ability to respond quickly to the market dynamics is key, COGOS is fast becoming the de-facto player for marquee customers for City Logistics, operating in more than 300 cities in India and expanding rapidly. We have been aggressively working towards organising the Indian city logistics market.
As COGOS recently raised debt funds, how does the company plan to allocate the fund?
COGOS recently scored $1.2 million from Vivriti Capital in a debt facility. The credit line issued will be utilised by us towards our steady expansion since our operations are now active across the country. We have been backed by Vivriti Capitals because of our credible position in the market. Last-mile is growing steadily and we are set to witness some high rise in demand, specifically from tier 2&3 cities. Immediate capital investment will help us combat this demand with complete efficiency. We are determined to utilise it in our aggressive expansion plan, specifically in tier 2 and tier 3 cities.
As COGOS acquired the FMCG Modern Trade business of Porter, how do you plan to expand it?
The FMCG segment is a very crucial and essential business around the world. While Modern Trade plays a very vital role in brand visibility and revenue share for FMCG companies, they have a critical challenge in delivering to Modern Trade. The penetration of Tech-logistics in this space has been minimal leading to loss of opportunity and higher costs for FMCG companies and Modern Trade. With this acquisition, we look forward to organising and optimising the sector’s supply chain with our state-of-the-art tech platform and advanced delivery system. With this investment, we further aim at strengthening our platform in order to suit the demand for city logistics. We also aim at expanding our fleet to 50,000 vehicles in order to meet the demand. We have the FMCG vertical operational in Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Pune, Chennai, Kolkata, Ahmedabad, and Hyderabad, and will eventually expand this to over 300+ cities that we are already present in.
COGOS recently expanded its presence in Himachal Pradesh and Goa, what are the challenges they are facing in these states?
Our ultimate goal at COGOS is to have a pan-India presence and as a part of that, we have expanded our services in Himachal Pradesh and Goa. These states like any other states in the country have fragmented and unorganised logistics. We are helping out both truckers and transporters along with the enterprise to get them more organised and digitised.
How are recent changes in logistics-related policies booming the industry?
The changes in the logistics policies come in mainly with the National Logistics Policy(NLP). It will take time for IT to have an impact at the ground level. There has been a lot of movement, across sectors, especially in e-commerce and warehousing which is helping out the logistics sector to boom. The multi-model and others would take up a bit more time to shape and these industries have been there for several decades hence the impact of these policies would be in the long term.
Post-pandemic need for complete integration of Technology in the logistics sector and how COGOS is working towards the same.
Technology integration in the logistics sector was needed for a long time. Of course, the pandemic actually triggered the very importance of this and in fact, one of the reasons how the entire digital commerce boomed was because of the technology, which COGOS has been pioneering. In fact, we helped the government during the pandemic with the delivery of essential goods and door-to-door help in Bangalore. We have also helped out many enterprises in Tier 2 and 3 cities, and interiors of the country, to get the right capacity at the right time, at the right price, and
