UAE-based on-demand truck aggregator, TruKKer, has raised $10 million (AED 36.7 million) from San Francisco-based specialty lending firm, Partners for Growth (PFG).

The transaction marks the first venture debt deal of this scale for any technology business in the Middle East, as well as the first deal for PFG in the region, the MENA's largest digital freight network, said in a statement.

The debt will be used to finance working capital needs required for the instant payment of thousands of transporters operating on TruKKer's network, it said.

Amit Agarwal, TruKKer's Group CFO, said: "One of our essential capabilities is the ability to finance instant payments to the small transporters and owner-operators, while offering standard credit terms for enterprise clients. We have a very diverse and high-quality client base with three years of consistent payment cycles. Having demonstrated performance and substantial growth, financing our expanding working capital needs with a structured debt facility was an obvious next step for us. We are very happy and proud to have a world-class institution like PFG on board."

The deal follows a $23 million equity raise by TruKKer in late 2019, which was one of the largest Series A funding rounds in the region,

Technology Ventures (STV), International Finance Corporation (IFC), Endeavor Catalyst Fund, Middle East Venture Partners (MEVP) and other prominent regional and international funds participated in the Series A funding rounds.

TruKKer has a fleet of more than 25,000 trucks and 500 B2B customers on to its platform, including leading multi-national consumer products companies.

(Writing by Seban Scaria; editing by Daniel Luiz)

(seban.scaria@refinitiv.com)

 

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