Founder. Field inspector.
Still learning.
Building Cargofirst from Bengaluru — making cargo movement simpler, more transparent, and more reliable for Indian businesses.
Building Cargofirst from Bengaluru — making cargo movement simpler, more transparent, and more reliable for Indian businesses.
I'm Vinay. I grew up in Bengaluru, studied Physical Sciences at Bengaluru City University, then went on to do a Master's in Organic Chemistry. If you're wondering what any of that has to do with logistics — so am I, sometimes. But the path made sense as it unfolded.
Long before I understood what a supply chain was, I was living inside one. During school and college holidays, I worked as a field inspector — checking quality of rice, peanuts, and buffalo meat at warehouses and export yards around Bengaluru. It was unglamorous, physical work. But it gave me something no classroom could: a real feel for how trade moves.
My real education in export trade began at Moguire Foods — I joined as a data entry guy during college, just trying to be useful. Over time the founder trusted me with more. I moved into business development, learned how rice gets sourced, graded, documented, and shipped. I watched what happens when things go wrong at the port at 2am. The founder later started a tech venture to digitise the rice export industry, and I was part of that journey too.
It was there I got my real education — not just in trade, but in what it means to build something from nothing. I failed at things, learned from them, and had a boss who gave me the room to do both. His trust shaped how I think about building teams. I owe him more than I can say.
It was also there that I met Rohit Salveru — my co-founder at Cargofirst. He came in as a Finance and Fundraising intern while I was deep in business development. Sharp, thorough, and completely unbothered by the chaos of an early-stage startup. We worked alongside each other, figured out how to get things done with almost nothing, and built a friendship in the process.
We went our separate ways after the startup. I headed to Vietnam. Rohit joined Bosch Global Software Technologies in Bengaluru — starting as a Management Trainee in Business Finance and rising to Senior Officer, advising on financial planning and analysis at one of the world's largest engineering companies. Two and a half years of rigorous corporate finance. A very different world from where we'd started.
But when I came back to Bengaluru with the idea for Cargofirst, the first call I made was to Rohit. He left Bosch at the end of 2024 to build this with me. That decision still means a great deal to me. We've been through every high and low together since — the kind of ups and downs that either break a partnership or make it unbreakable. Ours is the latter. He brings the financial rigour and strategic discipline that keeps everything grounded; I'd be lost without him.
The path here
First formal role. Selling on the ground in Bengaluru, learning how real businesses buy and why.
Two years learning the commercial side of cross-border trade — how deals get structured, how relationships with buyers and suppliers actually work, and how much of global commerce runs on trust rather than contracts.
Nearly two years on the ground, managing supply chains and vendors in an unfamiliar country. Vietnam taught me patience, adaptability, and how to operate when everything is ambiguous. One of the most formative stretches of my career.
Came back to Bengaluru and started building. Freight logistics in India is fragmented and opaque. I had spent years on both sides of that problem and thought I understood it well enough to fix a piece of it.
Then came Vietnam. I moved there to head Import Operations and Quality at a trading company — nearly two years on the ground, working across supply chains, managing vendors, and learning how trade works when you're far from home and everything is unfamiliar. It was one of the most formative stretches of my career. Vietnam taught me patience, adaptability, and how to operate in ambiguity.
What I'm building
We're still early. Building a company is slower and harder than I expected — and more interesting too. I don't have a clean overnight-success story to tell. What I have is four years of showing up, a team I'm proud of, and a problem space I genuinely believe in.
The deeper I got into freight, the more I realised the problem wasn't just operations — it was information. Importers and exporters in India make enormous decisions based on gut feel, scattered spreadsheets, and expensive consultants. That's the gap Blinkus.AI is built to close: an AI trade assistant that scans data across 200+ countries to surface market opportunities, buyer intelligence, freight rates, compliance requirements, and more — in one place, in plain language. The kind of tool I wish had existed when I was doing this manually on a warehouse floor.
Outside work I'm a Bengalurean through and through. I write occasionally about trade, logistics, and building in India. Not as an expert — as someone still in the middle of it.
If any of this resonates, feel free to reach out.
