A contrarian approach to building a software-enabled freight network has helped Freight Tiger roar

SWAPNIL SHAH STARTS the interview with a disclaimer. "If you happen to be the first one to do something, you will have to live with the cross," says Shah, who grew up in Kolhapur, Maharashtra, spent a decade in materials science research, worked close to six years in the US and returned to India in 2013. Two years later, when he decided to build a tech platform to transform commerce through logistics, he almost threw himself under the truck. Reason? For a country obsessed with kitna deti hai (mileage) and the logistics industry fixated with an age-old question – can you ship it from point A to point B – Shah's software lingo sounded Greek. It was a Herculean task to make people understand how technology-enabled freight could help businesses move goods with full visibility, efficiency and lower costs.

Freight Tiger, founded in 2015, enables movement of goods through a combination of software, a connected freight marketplace and an AI-powered freight desk

• Building India's largest software-enabled freight network

• Pioneered in transit visibility and accurate ETA (estimated time of arrival) predictions for freight deliveries; claims to process close to 5% of India's freight

• In 2019, raised $8 million; in 2021, scooped up $6.5 million; Backers include Tata Motors, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Moguntia Capital and Florintree Advisors; in October 2023, Tata Motors bought a 26.79% stake in the company

The problem, though, was not confined to the external stakeholders. Employees too found it tough to make sense of the plan. Hiring and retaining was turning to be his Achilles' heel. Somehow, Freight Tiger plodded along.

Five years later, it was a déjà vu moment for Shah. In 2020, during peak Covid months, he almost threw himself under the truck. How? The entrepreneur decided to make a transition from a software to a marketplace. "I picked up the hardest time to launch the marketplace," he says. Confusion gripped every stakeholder: employees, investors and customers. What aggravated the pain was the inability of the market to appreciate his differentiated tech offering. Logistics rivals were pitching themselves as the 'Uber of truck.' "I took a contrarian approach," he says.

Fast forward to 2025. Freight Tiger is roaring. Given the context – a score of truck start-ups such as TruckMandi, TruckSumo and Ezytruk have shut shop over the last few years – Shah managed to scale up and attract strategic partners such as Tata Motors. So, what's his survival and success mantra? Shah keeps it simple. "There will always be non-believers. Don't worry about 99 nays. You just need one person to believe you," he signs off.