Trukker, the UAE-based start-up that provides an Uber-esque service for trucks, is close to finalising a fresh round of fundraising, a senior company executive said.
The executive said that while an initial public offering (IPO) could be in the works down the road, it’s not an option at this stage for the young company.
“We are in the middle of an on-going Series B fundraising,” Anish Garg, vice president of operations for Trukker, told Arabian Business, adding that the deal will be announced soon.
The Trukker senior executive, however, declined to disclose either the size of the funding or the investors involved in the deal.
Sources in the venture capital circles in Dubai said the investments in Trukker could be in the range of $30-50 million.
“Since Trukker could raise $23 million in Series A round – which is much higher than the average investment for the round – it could hope to get a relatively higher investment in the Series B round as well,” the managing director of a Dubai-based venture capital, who wished not to be identified, told Arabian Business.
Though the pre-pandemic average estimated capital raised in Series B rounds is $33 million, top honchos in venture capital circles said investment firms are currently ready to make larger bets with companies where they have already invested and whose prospects they are bullish about.
Trukker’s $23 million Series A fundraising round in November 2019 – one of the largest Series A funding rounds in the region – was led by STV, a Saudi technology venture capital fund that previously invested in Careem, the UAE-based ride-hailing company that was acquired by Uber Technologies for $3.1 billion in March 2019.
Trukker recently signed a $10 million debt deal with Silicon Valley-based Partners for Growth to provide venture debt to finance its receivables.
On the venture’s plans to go in for an IPO, Garg said: “Yes, Trukker does consider an IPO as a potential option, but we are not considering it right now.”
Sources in the venture capital circles in Dubai said the investments in Trukker could be in the range of $30-50 million
The venture has raised a total of $44.4 million in funding over seven rounds to date, the latest being the $10 million debt funding, according to Crunchbase, which provides data on companies, funding and investors.
Besides STV, the other investors in the venture include Endeavour Catalyst, International Finance Corporation, Riyad Taqnia Fund, Iliad Partners and Middle East Venture Partners.
Garg earlier told Arabian Business that Trukker, a market leader in the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Egypt, was planning to launch in Oman, Kuwait and a host of GCC countries.
“We have a very significant expansion footprint across the Africa and the Levant region also, where we are exploring countries which are similar to Egypt, for example Jordan and others,” he said earlier.
Garg also revealed that while revenues “declined” as a result of lockdowns in the wake of the pandemic, the company has managed to surpass its pre-coronavirus numbers in July and August, and the growth has since been “tremendous”, sitting around 25-30 percent up on annual targets.
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