Our target is to grow 10-fold in AP, TS

​Hyderabad: As a part of its aggressive nationalwide expansion plans, Load 24x7, a New Delhi-based Android mobile app that connects goods owners looking for transport with vehicle owners, is looking at setting up operations in Hyderabad by early 2017, according to its co-founder Lokesh Gupta.

We already have over 1,400 transports and 730 packers and movers registered with us from Telangana and Andhra Pradesh. Post the launch of the Hyderabad office, we expect our business to gain traction and grow 10-fold in the two Telugu states,” he told The Hans India.

The expansion is part of the self-funded startup’s bigger plans to open offices in 100 smart cities across the country in 2017, each with an investment of around Rs 5 lakh. “This expansion will play a key role in match-making goods with vehicles,” Gupta said.

The Load 24x7 online platform is now home to an enormous fleet of over 50,000 transporters, more than 5,100 packers and movers, and has over 20,000 registered users and 175 advertisers from all over India. “We have touched every part of India and are expecting the Load 24x7 network to onboard at least 1,00,000 mobile app users during the next calendar year,” he added.

Load 24x7, which provides brokerage-free, one-to-one approach between goods and vehicle owners (be it mini trucks, refrigeration vans, tankers or containers), terms the $385-billion transportation industry as a “trade of losses’, courtesy the industry keeping distance with technology and still working in the old traditional way.

Load 24x7 eliminates the mediators, who usually manipulate the freight as well, and provides good and vehicle owners direct access to each other,” he said, adding that anywhere between five lakh and seven lakh vehicles were unable to get return goods daily due to the lack of connectivity and communication technologies.

Launched by four childhood friends – industrialist and Delhi University graduate with an MBA Lokesh Gupta, network engineer Vikas Sharma, MBA in HR and finance Parveen Sharma, and Rinku Sharma, a housewife who is now monetising the company’s internal structure –in August 2015, has recently introduced a new feature called ‘Sale and Purchase’ that facilitates one-on-one interaction between entities looking to sell and purchase their second-hand (pre-owned commercial vehicles.

Our vision is to increase connectivity and digitise India’s transport network. Besides making available an inquiry service for Android devices, searches on Load24x7 are refined and matched on the basis of requirement and availability,” Gupta said.

Despite many apps, including Blackbucks and Rivigo operating in the space, Load 24x7 says it doesn’t see competition anywhere as all the other apps working in the transportation sector don the role of booking agents, brokers and commission agents and directly involve in the deal.

While other apps keep users deprived of transparency and make money through mediating the process, Load 24x7 provides a brokerage-free platform,” Gupta claimed.

Stating that transporters or vehicle owners are typically less educated and fear that technologies would ruin their businesses, he said, they were a bit freaky to adopt Load 24x7’s free open platform.

Lack of education among transporters, less adaptability for technology due to the traditional way of working is the biggest hurdle. But as they start using the Android mobile app, they find it is providing them many options and competitive prices,” he added.