Convoy has built what’s dubbed the first nationwide digital freight management network. Now, the Seattle-based logistics startup will use a new $400 million Series D raise to further its goal of eliminating waste and inefficiency across the trucking industry.
Convoy claims that “tens of thousands” of truckloads make use of its platform each week, leveraging a model that automates the pairing of shipments with carriers—saving money for shippers, reducing the legwork and hassle for carriers and helping the industry operate sustainably with less carbon emissions.
The Series D funding round was co-led by Generation Investment Management, a dedicated sustainability investment firm, and funds and accounts advised by T. Rowe Price Associates, Inc. (a previous Convoy investor).
Baillie Gifford, Fidelity Management and Research Co., Durable Capital Partners LP and Series C investors CapitalG and Lone Pine Capital also participated, bringing the startup’s total raise to more than $668 million from investors including Greylock Partners, Y Combinator, Cascade Investment (the private investment vehicle of William H. Gates III), Salesforce.com CEO Marc Benioff, Code.org founders Hadi and Ali Partovi, U2’s Bono and The Edge, Jeff Bezos via Bezos Expeditions, and others.
Joy Tuffield, a partner at Generation Investment Management, sees Convoy as innovating “the future of logistics.”
She added, “Through its use of data science, Convoy is driving the next evolution in efficiency across the industry. This is an exceptional opportunity to achieve a reduction in carbon emissions, while simultaneously increasing earnings for truck drivers and increasing service quality for shippers.”
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Convoy, which counts Wayfair, Proctor & Gamble and Unilever among its clients, has transformed the way many companies move goods across the country.
In addition to automating 100 percent of truck-to-load matches in top markets, the startup has also launched the Automated Reloads feature, which employs machine learning to group full-truckload shipments for carriers, drives more than half of matched loads in top markets and is credited with decreasing carbon dioxide emissions by 45 percent, thanks to fewer trucks operating without cargo.
Efficiency is at the heart of Convoy platform, CEO and co-founder Dan Lewis noted.
“Trucking has historically been a zero-sum game, born from a marketplace where when one side wins the other side loses,” he explained. “The magic of applying technology to this decades-old industry is that we can create a true win-win for both sides, lowering the total cost to shippers with better service, while removing the hassle of wasted time and miles for truck drivers, allowing them to earn more.
“Building a more efficient digital freight network,” Lewis continued, “also means we can dramatically reduce carbon emissions associated with empty miles, which is good for the planet.”