Rakesh Munnanooru, the founder and CEO of WhistleDrive, made a dramatic move, to steer his startup to a more profitable, promising future after the initial statewide shutdown by introducing a whole new vertical of logistics in the middle of the global epidemic.
Munnanooru founded WhistleDrive in 2016 with the goal of creating technology-driven solutions that would enable India’s smart transportation.
Initially focused on providing driver-on-services, they quickly realised the need for efficient and tech-backed solutions for corporate employee transportation and developed a comprehensive technology platform that digitises end-to-end transportation operations with features such as automated route planning, real-time vehicle tracking, and advanced safety features such as SOS alerts and network alerts.
WhistleDrive established a powerful technological platform with sophisticated fleet operations powered by technology, utilising cutting-edge technologies such as Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning.
WhistleDrive was named one of the ‘Next Global Tech 50’ at the World Innovators Meet in 2019, just three years after its start.
WhistleDrive transforms into a full-stack urban logistics company
The startup claims that by integrating the correct technologies in employee transportation, it has helped businesses save up to 23% on employee transportation expenditures while also improving overall operations efficiency by 95%.
However, due to Covid-19 and nationwide lockdowns, all of their operations were halted, and revenue was reduced to ‘nothing.’
A few days passed in anticipation of everything returning to normal, but the situation remained the same as it had been for many other organisations. The team recognised the pulse and chose to work on items that could assist WhistleDrive get through the pandemic based on their observations of events around the world and their conversations with industry leaders.. That’s when they decided to get started with the logistics services (the movement of goods), transforming themselves into a full-stack urban logistics company.
Pushing limits to shape employee logistics through intelligent AI Systems
“We had the idea of venturing into intra-city logistics for a very long time, may be some time in 2022 or near, but Covid-19 left us with no choice but to work on it now, and challenged us to push our limits,” Munnanooru said.
Though the core of employee transportation and enterprise logistics is similar, it takes a whole new conviction and a highly-strategised execution to make things work at the ground level.
It’s been about 18 months since WhistleDrive started providing logistics services and it is already working with leading brands of the country like Myntra, Flipkart, Amazon, Delhivery and Meesho, serving more than 15 cities in the country.
Munnanooru believes that there is still the need for a lot of innovation in the intracity logistics space, especially last-mile deliveries, and hence they are working towards new solutions.
WhistleDrive has raised Rs 72 crore in Series B round from Colosseum Group and claims to be operationally profitable since inception.
“We see a huge need for tech-driven logistics, not just in India, but across the world. We are building ‘WhistleOS’, an operating system that powers urban logistics,” Munnanooru added.
