Convoy, Uber of Freight Forwarding, Receives $62M Investment from Fund Including Bill Gates and Amazon Founder Jeff Bezos
Founded in 2015 by software development expert Grant Goodale and logistics consultant Dan Lewis and making a name for itself rapidly since its establishment, Convoy continues to draw attention with the investments it has received. Convoy, which previously received an investment of 16 million USD, continues to grow with an investment of 62 million USD from the Y Combinator fund, which consists of famous names such as Bill Gates, Howard Behar and Barry Diller in the new investment period.
Established in Seattle, the epicenter of Amazon, one of the leaders of the e-commerce and logistics industry, Convoy brings together Cargo Shippers and Cargo Carriers through its mobile application. Approximately 10 thousand Freight Carriers, who provide transportation services, and more than 300 Freight Carriers, including world giants such as Unilever and Anheuser-Busch, meet on the created digital platform. StartUp mediates thousands of connections with the digital marketplace established between Load Bearing and Load Bearing Parties every week. Co-founder and CEO Dan Lewis said in a statement that they want to operate in the east coast of America in 2018, and underlines their plans to provide services across the country.
As Industry 4.0 standards become widespread, Convoy’s competitors, which serve the rapidly developing “digitalization of logistics”, continue to increase their power. For example; Uber launched “Uber Freight”, which it designed as a digital spot freight market, in May 2017. Transfix, the other logistics StartUp, has increased its capital to 42 million USD in 2017 Q3 with the investments of NEA, which provides funds for developing StartUps.
With the new generation logistics service applications provided by Convoy and other logistics StartUps, it is predicted that logistics operations will become much more efficient in terms of Loaders, Logistics Firms and Truck/Truck Drivers.
Digital logistics applications;
- load offer, load matching, load assignment processes,
- real-time tracking of freight routes,
- digital tracking of cargo documents and ERP management,
- freight payment facilities,
It is expected to significantly increase business optimization and capacity in all logistics operation management steps such as
Source: Forbes