Award-winning start-up offers quick and easy logistics links

A new start-up, Giztix.com, which has won three major start-up pitches and competitions this year, has an ambitious dream of being a global platform for supply-chain systems. 

It won a Thailand ICT Award in the Start-up Category, the Digital Winners Award from DTAC Accelerate Batch 3, and Echelon Thailand 2015’s Start-up LaunchPad award. It also walked away with the title of Most Promising Start-up. 

Sittisak Wongsomnuk, 25, Giztix.com’s chief executive officer and co-founder, said it started offering services in September by positioning itself as an e-marketplace for logistics services to pinpoint addresses for shippers and transport providers. It can help shorten a logistics service’s quotation period from two hours in the domestic market, 10 hours in Asean market, and two days for with Europe or North America to nearly real time. 

It provides lists and details of shippers and transport providers so users can quickly and easily find logistics services. 

The service is provided free of charge to shippers, and its revenue comes from commissions and transition fees charged to transport providers that get customers via Giztix.com. 

Shippers can source the transport providers verified by Giztix.com and quickly get transport and freight clearance, while transport companies have a greater opportunity to get customers easily. They can increase revenue by not needing to invest in technology and sales procedures. 

Giztix.com currently serves around 100 shippers and more than 100 transport companies, 20 of the latter in Thailand. The rest are in mainland China, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Sir Lanka, Britain, Australia and the United States. 

The competitive advantage of Giztix.com is to offer easy ways to handle logistics for both shippers and transport providers. The shipper can compare prices, while the transport company can sell its services anywhere. 

Sittisak said Giztix’ platform made the logistics services enjoyed by large companies available to smaller firms at an affordable cost. 

Next year, Giztix.com aims to have more than 10,000 active users per day, of which 80 per cent are shippers and the rest transport providers. It also expects to be available in 15 countries with total transaction value of US$10 million (Bt357 million). 

He said Giztix.com aimed to cash in on the high potential logistics value in Asean, a market worth around $20 billion and which is expected to grow by 2-6 per cent per year.

From being an e-marketplace for logistics services, Giztix.com by mid-2016 plans to extend its service to cover the whole supply-chain system through partnerships with large e-commerce service providers. 

“We aim to be the platform hub of the global supply chain system through integrating Giztix.com with international e-commerce players such as Alibaba and Priceza.com,” Sittisak said.

He said Giztix.com was seeking venture-capital fund-raising worth $300,000 for team expansion. It is also applying for support from the Board of Investment. 

It plans to launch a mobile application early next year. 

Out of 100 applications, 15 teams were selected to make their pitch in front of judges on the first day of “Echelon Thailand” in Bangkok. Five start-ups were shortlisted to make a presentation in front of a live audience and a panel of five judges. They were Ardent Capital CEO Adrian Vanzyl; Linear Venture founding partner Harry Wang; Andrew Kvalseth, head of the strategy and innovation division of Total Access Communication (DTAC); Gobi Partners investment director Victor Chua; and GREE Ventures associate Albert Shyy. 

As part of the grand prize, Giztix received three years’ access to BizSpark, BizSpark Plus and $120,000 worth of Azure credits from LaunchPad prize sponsor Microsoft. These prizes will allow Giztix to access software and tools like Visual Studio and Office, alongside training courses and a vibrant technology community. 

Additionally, the Giztix team received a pair of tickets to “Echelon Asia Summit 2016”, and an exhibition booth at the international summit to be held in Singapore next June.

Echelon is Asia’s premier technology and business conference that celebrates the start-up industry and its change-makers. It is organised to convene the region’s tech space, investors and influencers to discuss Asia’s emerging trends and ascend to a higher value proposition.