“Agribusiness Uber”, firm creates three way partnership value R$ 500 million and takes mannequin for mining

Agreement between logtech Tmov and Lenarge Transportes aims to accelerate the digitalization of the cargo transport business in the mining, steel and civil construction segments

Known as the “Uber of Agribusiness”, logtech Tmov has just created a joint venture with Lenarge, a company that works with cargo transport in the mining, steel and civil construction sectors.

The joint deal aims to bring the offer of digital freight to this market, with great representation in the country and still lacking solutions that ship this type of product.

On the side of Tmov, which held 51% of the operation, the agreement unlocks access to the segment it had been looking at for some time. The company wants to take its technology and financial services platform to attract more truck drivers and cargo shippers, which helps the business gain scale.

Lenarge, today with a more traditional model of subcontracting truck drivers with revenue of R$ 500 million per year, will be able to digitize its base and also offer the new partner’s solutions to its customers, including CSN, Votorantim, Gerdau and Usiminas.

The carrier from Sabará, in Minas Gerais, has a second market arm, operating with its own fleet of approximately 1000 trucks and 1400 trailers. This pillar, responsible for another R$ 500 million in revenue, did not enter into the agreement and will continue to be managed exclusively by the company.

Internally, the joint venture is being called LNT. With the arrival of the operation manager, not yet named, they must define what the name will be. The agreement has already been approved by the Administrative Council for Economic Defense (Cade).

How did the joint venture come about?

Negotiations until the formalization of the model lasted just over a year. At the beginning of the conversations, Tmov proposed that Lenarge join its marketplace model, launched this year and from which truck drivers, carriers and cargo owners can negotiate services and values.

Observing the transformations in the transport market, Lenarge thinks that the format was not the most suitable and, between comings and goings, they arrived at the joint venture.

“Lenarge already intended to invest in technology to digitize and optimize its processes”, says Márcio Afonso Moraes, CEO of Lenarge Transportes. “We saw enormous potential to scale our services by bringing together Tmov’s technology.”

With the partnership, the company projects a growth of 30% in 2023 compared to 2022, when it should end with R$ 1.2 billion in revenue. The company took 49% of the business.

How does Tmov work?

Tmov connects a base of 100,000 monthly active partner drivers to more than 900 customers, such as JBS, BRF, Cargill and Coopersucar. Companies inform available loads and drivers can accept freight and carry out the entire documentation process through the platform itself.

This includes, for example:

• Risk management to validate the parties
• Approved means of payment
• digital wallet
• cargo insurance

As there are more customers using the service and more loads to transport, the model reduces the chances of trucks returning empty. This is the company’s main business and represents about 80% of the revenue.

During 2022, logtech also created a marketplace where customers can negotiate directly with carriers and truck drivers. The ecosystem has gained strength and now represents about 20%.

Connected to the two sources of revenue, Tmov has invested in complementary services, such as TmovPay, a digital account where truck drivers receive for their freight. Also this year, it launched a prepaid digital toll tag and a microcredit service for drivers.

“Absolutely all the pain is covered within the platform,” says Charlie Conner, CEO of Tmov. The American executive arrived in Brazil in 2013 as the leader of the Arlon Group, a fund that joined the company as an investor in 2016, then under the name Sotran.

where the company wants to go

Created in 1985 as a carrier, Tmov has invested to become a technology platform. Over time, Conner fell in love with the sector, chose to leave the fund and since July 2019 has led the operation.

As soon as he announced the agreement, the professional shows that he has an appetite for new sectors. He says that he already has some strategic negotiations in progress and that the company is open to new moves, be they joint ventures, acquisitions or franchises.

“We have been trying to gain strength in this strategy of taking a large piece of agribusiness, taking another large piece of mining, steel and construction materials now and then managing to assemble an ecosystem with R$ 5 billion, R$ 10 billion, R$ 20 billion of freight with the same platform”, he says.

For 2022, Tmov projects revenues above R$ 2.5 billion, up 56% compared to 2021.

Source: Exam