The Shanghai-based logistics platform Duckbill (“Yazuishou” in Chinese) has bagged USD 30 million in a pre-Series B round led by Future Capital and Shunwei Capital, the financial adviser of the deal Lighthouse Capital revealed on its official WeChat account on Monday.
Founded in July 2017, Duckbill has built a network connecting truck drivers and large firms that need to move containers to a port for shipping. The startup seeks business from logistics companies and separates their requests into small orders for truck drivers to pick up via an app called FT-Boss (“Weilai Chelaoban” in Chinese).
Duckbill says it has now more than 5,000 corporate clients, among them Shanghai-based logistics giant Sinolines, CTS International Logistics, state-owned China Cosco Shipping, as well as smaller companies. It now transports 70,000 containers monthly via tens of thousands of drivers, a 200% year-on-year increase, according to 36Kr. Currently, Duckbill has four destinations, the ports in Shanghai, Ningbo, Qingdao, and Taicang, and it has started to transport containers to Shenzhen Port on a trial basis since the beginning of the month, 36Kr further reported.
“We believe there is at least a 100-fold growth potential for Duckbill,” Huang Mingming of investor Future Capital said. “The startup will play an important role in improving efficiency in China’s RMB 30 trillion (USD 4.4 trillion) export and import business.”
Shunwei Capital partner Cheng Tian pointed out that “the container road transportation sector is a RMB 100 billion (USD 14.6 billion) market in China, with low-efficient and scattered transportation capabilities, and thus in need of a consolidation.” He added that Duckbill’s in-house developed order and dispatch system is optimizing processes, but still at a very early stage.