Flock Freight Raises $113M in Funding

SOLANA BEACH, Calif. — Today a $113.5 million round was was closed by Flock Freight to speed up the development of technology for truckload shipping and logistics. This technology uses algorithmic pooling. This capital infusion comes after the company reached 12,000 with pooled shipments across thousands of shippers. This is an increase of almost 300% between 2018 and 2019.

The trucking industry is forecasted to grow nearly 75% by 2026 and generates an annual revenue of $726 billion. Nearly 80% of all cargo in the U.S. is transported by workers within the country’s 1.3 million trucking companies. Combined, they employ 7.1 million people who drive dry vans, flatbeds, and other heavy lifters. Pre-pandemic, last mile delivery was becoming one of the most profitable parts of the supply chain, and it continues to do so currently. 41% of the supply chain is operated by the research firm Capgemini.

Flock Freight uses marketplace tools to pool partial-truckload (PTL) and less-than-truckload (LTL) freight shipments to ship as full truckload service. Flock Freight classifies PTL as a maximum of 24 pallets, taking up to 48 feet in deck space and weighing under 40,000 pounds. These are heading to a single location, and the platform pools as many as 10 trucks along their route to maximize savings by pooling them into a single truckload.

For LTL, Flock Freight expedites the shipments via trucks to intended destinations, removing the traditional freight transit model.

Instant “prebates” are offered that lower rates on contracted truckloads measuring 44 linear feet or less. This program automatically allows Flock Freight to move eligible freight to deliver quality service at a more appealing price. This model is meant to be a stand-in to provide an alternative to more expensive forms of transportation, for example, by air.

According to a spokesperson for the company, “In order to create shared truckloads, Flock Freight’s pooling algorithms sort through thousands of possible shipment permutations to find only those which are feasible to execute and economically advantageous for the shipper and the carrier.The algorithms take into account origin, destination, weight, dimensions, commodity type, scheduling, and shipping cost, along with several other shipping constraints to propose feasible shared truckloads.”

The company has thousands of drivers operating within their network that spans across the U.S. and Canada. Each driver is tracked via email and dashboard notifications in real-time. They have reduced fuel emissions up to 40% by eliminating the need to switch transportation vehicles or delay at warehouses. This allows them the capability of reaching and maintaining a 97.5% on-time delivery rate.

Ceo, Zaslansky, states that these statistics set them apart from other competitors. San Francisco-based startup KeepTruckin received $149 million to enhance and improve its shipment marketplace, while a $97 million dollar investment was brokered by Next Trucking. Convoy has raised $400 million to make freight trucking more streamlined, at a valuation of $2.75 billion. Uber also offers a service called Uber Freight, to which it committed $200 million for major expansion.

Flock Freight will receive support from the trucking arm of Volvo and will work together to help advance the shared goals of both companies. Zaslansky has backing from Volvo Group Venture Capital, Google Ventures, GLP Capital Partners, and SignalFire. The series C round led by SoftBank made this announcement.

Based out of Solana Beach, California, Flock Freight has raised $184 million to date and employs 129 employees.