The International Finance Corporation (IFC) is going to invest $2.5 million in the digital trucking platform, Truck Lagbe, to connect people and corporate customers with truck owners and drivers through an app and a website in Bangladesh.

IFC, a member of the World Bank Group and the largest global development institution, said this in a statement today.

IFC has partnered with Truck Lagbe to help expand its services, modernize the logistics sector and maintain critical supply chains, especially for delivering food and essential items during Covid-19, it said.

Truck Lagbe's services are helping sustain small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and also supporting livelihoods during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Truck Lagbe is used to book short-haul and long-haul freight trips, with trucks of different sizes, across all 64 districts in Bangladesh. It is one of the largest e-logistics platforms in Bangladesh catering for over 43,000 unique shippers, with over 20,000 registered trucks, the statement read.

By leveraging technology, the company matches demand and supply for freight services, offers price transparency, real-time tracking of shipments through GPS technology and maximizes truck utilization, driving efficiencies across the logistics value chain, which reduces greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, it said.

"As traditional methods became inaccessible during the COVID-19 pandemic, Truck Lagbe became the go-to platform for thousands of small businesses and truck owners for hiring trucks. This helped them to continue their business," said Anayet Rashid, Truck Lagbe's Co-Founder and CEO.

"We are very excited to have IFC as a partner who has already invested in similar startups in other countries. This will help us to expand in every district of Bangladesh along with bringing in various support services to facilitate everyone to move from the fragmented and unorganized local market to our tech has driven logistics platform," he said.

"It is crucial for Bangladesh, which aims to become a middle-income country over the next decade, to have an efficient transport infrastructure and logistics services, which not only provides more support for the shipment of goods during the pandemic but can also help transport exports to markets," said Nuzhat Anwar, IFC's Acting Country Manager for Bangladesh, Bhutan and Nepal.

"In addition to its financing, IFC is providing the company with the knowledge and innovative support by leveraging insights from previous investments and will be connecting Truck Lagbe to more prospective clients," Anwar said.

The transport and logistics services market in Bangladesh has a value of $15 billion (PwC 2018), equivalent to 6.8 per cent of the gross domestic product GDP, IFC said in the statement.