According to the International Energy Agency, the transportation industry was responsible for about 26% of the global carbon dioxide emissions in 2018 (8.26 Giga tonnes) – the figure rose to 8.5 Gt the following year. This translates into over 37 mn trucks running every year.

The information made Devirshi Arora and Pragya Mittal realise how urgent it was to transition to more environment-friendly options, leading to the launch of EVIFY, their tech-braced logistics startup. The company aims to transform India’s disorganised logistics industry into a digitised, structured platform with sustainable business practices. “The idea behind EVIFY is to offer one-stop, environment-friendly, end-to-end logistics solutions, be it vehicles, charging stations or green warehouses,” says Arora.

The Surat-based company that is providing delivery service to e-commerce players is among the first few companies in India with the goal of having a carbon negative fleet. While it offers its services in Surat at present, the company plans to launch in Ahmedabad in the coming months. It targets adding 3,000-4,000 vehicles to its fleet by the end of the year and scale up to over 5,000 drivers.

By supplying delivery personnel and electric vehicles, the company hopes to electrify last-mile deliveries for India’s D2C (direct-to-consumer), FMCG, and e-commerce players. It runs its businesses on a per-delivery and rental basis. EVIFY’s partners include names like Big Basket, Hero Electric, and Swiggy. “So far, we have logged 68,000+ green deliveries across 3,50,000+green km,” says Mittal.

The company recently raised a seed funding round of $100K from investors like We Founder Circle (speed and scale incubators), Gaurav Singhvi, Gaurav Juneja, Saurabh Agarwal, and Rajeev Goel. EVIFY intends to ramp up its technologies, team, and operations with the fund.

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EVIFY has also partnered with Hero Electric and signed an MoU to purchase 1,000+ electric scooters in the next two years. These EVs would be deployed in cities across Gujarat, including Vadodara, Ahmedabad and Rajkot.

EVIFY aims to bring about a revolution in the Indian logistics sector to fight the global warming threat the planet faces today, the two co-founders stress. Accordingly, the company also plans to install solar panels on the rooftops of its warehouses, offices, and parking hubs, further reducing its carbon footprint.

By the end of the year, the company targets delivering over 1.5 million packages. The CO2 emissions from conventional logistics for this volume would be approximately 1,392 tonnes, whereas EVIFY aims to deliver the same with only 262 tonnes of emissions, thus reducing 1,130 tonnes of CO2 emissions.

By employing technologies like geofencing, customised battery management system (BMS), telematics, client analytics, and driver and fleet management, EVIFY will be expanding the scope of its platform. In terms of clients, the company intends to start collaborating with giant online retailers like Amazon and Flipkart.

Making progress

Offering its services in Surat at present, the company plans to launch in Ahmedabad soon
EVIFY’s partners include names like Big Basket, Hero Electric, and Swiggy
The company recently raised a seed funding round of $100K from several investors