Porter, India’s tech start-up has announced its first overseas expansion with services in Dubai. The expansion comes under the company’s plans to explore the GCC regions and the Indian subcontinents.

The startup raised $100 million in series E funding and is backed by investors including Tiger Global, Sequoia and Lightrock India. With its expansion in this region, the company will provide a platform to ensure hassle-free deliveries through its LCVs and two-wheelers, addressing the gap in intracity logistics requirements for small package delivery for both personal and business requirements.

Porter has more than 20,000 customers currently on board and plans to make an investment of $6 million in the UAE for the next three years. The company is also looking to bolster operation in these cities and further increase customer acquisition twofold.

Pranav Goel, CEO & Co-Founder, Porter said, “We are thrilled to enter UAE as our first overseas market. Dubai being a global business hub, acts as an excellent facilitator for organisations that aim to establish their footprint in the region. We are thankful for all the business-friendly policies and infrastructure that the region has to offer and we expect to scale our business exponentially in the market. We further plan to invest USD 50 million into international expansion over the next 5 years. The expansion in UAE will catalyze the holistic growth of intra-city logistics ecosystem globally while also benefitting the local economy. We, at Porter are also actively focusing on generating employment opportunities for driver-partners and offering economical and efficient solutions backed by technology to the customers.”

“We are happy with the response that our platform has received and our learnings from the Indian market will help us in accelerating our growth in the UAE. Our model helps to bring efficiency into the system by addressing issues such as lower utilisation of vehicles, unavailability of the right vehicle type and the high cost for customers. This expansion should help provide a logistics solution for businesses as well as offer consumers direct control over their deliveries,” said Ankit Dwivedi, AVP – International Business, Porter.