Freightwalla: Sanjay Bhatia is Revolutionizing International Logistics with Data-Driven Automation
In the massive $30 billion international logistics market of India, the movement of a single shipping container is often a chaotic dance of dozens of phone calls, hundreds of emails, and error-prone Excel sheets. While intra-city logistics saw early disruption from players like Porter, the high-stakes world of global freight forwarding remained trapped in manual silos for decades. Sanjay Bhatia, Co-founder of Freightwalla, set out to change this. Combining his background in M&A strategy consulting at PwC with his experience in venture capital, Sanjay built a platform that brings transparency, predictability, and automation to the complex journey of an exporter’s cargo.
On the ELI Podcast, Sanjay shares how his family's roots in logistics combined with "First Principles" thinking allowed him to identify the most acute pain points in global trade. Today, Freightwalla serves as a digital-first freight forwarder, helping Indian businesses scale by removing the headache of logistics through proprietary tech and automated tracking.
The Trillion-Dollar Complexity
Moving cargo from a factory in Gujarat to a warehouse in Manchester involves five distinct steps: local trucking, customs clearance at the origin, ocean freight, customs at the destination, and final-mile delivery. Freightwalla focuses on automating the three most critical segments for Indian exporters: domestic trucking, customs, and ocean freight.
From PwC to VC: Finding the "Logic" in Logistics
Sanjay’s journey began in high-powered strategy consulting, where he specialized in the logistics sector. "10-12 years ago, logistics wasn't a popular field, but it was natural for me because of my family business," he recalls. After consulting, he moved into the venture capital world, which gave him exposure to the global explosion of technology-driven business models.
The epiphany came when he saw the "Porter effect" in India. "The moment I saw Porter getting funded for intra-city logistics, I was convinced. I knew that eventually, the attention would shift to international logistics—our core strength. The timing was finally right."
The Problem: The "Silent Cost" of Manual Processes
Sanjay identifies the primary frustration of Indian exporters as a lack of reliability. In a manual world, costs frequently escalate after the deal is signed—a quote of ₹100 often turns into an invoice of ₹150 due to "process errors."
Even a simple typo can be catastrophic. Sanjay cites the example of a misspelled name on a **Bill of Lading**. "Correcting a single letter on a document can cost $200. On a $2,000 shipment, that's 10% of the cost just for a silly typo. Our software was built to ensure these manual bottlenecks are eliminated through automation."
The Freightwalla Digital Pillars
- Costing & Planning: An instant quotation engine allowing exporters to compare route options and costs before the cargo even moves.
- Workflow Automation: Digitizing the two parallel streams of physical movement and documentation to catch exceptions in real-time.
- Automated Tracking: Providing a "Digital Mirror" where logistics managers can track cargo status and keep internal stakeholders (like marketing teams) informed.
Building In-House vs. Off-the-Shelf
A key differentiator for Freightwalla was the decision to build everything from scratch. Sanjay argues that existing logistics software is often just a "glorified data entry tool."
"You can punch data into a software or an Excel sheet—the value proposition is the same," he explains. "We built proprietary software that actually guides the process and does the work. Our vision is that the technology takes care of the day-to-day, and our team evolves into problem solvers for our clients."
The Power of Focus
Ocean Trade Focus: Instead of trying to integrate every logistics node at once, Sanjay focused on where the pain was most acute: the high-stakes documentation of ocean trade.
Unit Profitability: By focusing on sound business fundamentals and logic from day zero, Freightwalla prioritized sustainable growth over vanity metrics.
The Meaning of Entrepreneurship
For Sanjay, entrepreneurship is the ultimate expression of creativity in business. Coming from a family where everyone is an entrepreneur, he feels that the greatest upside is the freedom to run with an idea without being constrained by the need to align massive corporate teams.
"An entrepreneur is someone who sees the world and thinks things could be done better—and is convinced that he is the person who is going to make it better," he defines. "It’s about having that self-belief to improve a legacy system."
Sanjay's Advice for Founders
- Don't Confuse Noise for Signal: It’s easy to get lost in data. Ensure you are segmenting your analysis correctly so you don't think a product is failing when you're just selling it to the wrong person.
- Patience and Perseverance: Post-pandemic markets are tough. Be patient, stay consistent, and focus on business fundamentals.
- First Principles: You can accomplish a lot with logic and sound premises even when market data is obscure.
The Future of Global Trade
As Freightwalla continues to expand its value-added services—including cargo insurance and warehousing partnerships—Sanjay Bhatia remains focused on the core mission: making international logistics as easy as checking a digital dashboard. In an era where global supply chains are more volatile than ever, Freightwalla is building the digital backbone that keeps Indian exporters competitive on the global stage.