On Wednesday, Seattle-based freight forwarding startup Logixboard announced the closing of its $13 million Series A. Redpoint Ventures led the funding round, with participation from Social Leverage, F-Prime Capital, Founders Co-op, Techstars Ventures and several others.
The freight industry is one of the unsung heroes of the American economy. It’s the industry that allows raw materials, commodities and products to get from one place to another and involves a network that connects suppliers and corporations to their customers. It’s how food ends up in your grocery store, how that package you ordered online ends up at your doorstep and how vaccine supplies are distributed around the country.
The freight industry isn’t new, but it is transforming. A lot of this has to do with new technology and the way companies are adapting their business to operate more online. With this transformation, it’s important for freight companies to stay up-to-date on the latest tools, which is where Logixboard comes in.
Logixboard has created a tech platform that allows logistics service providers (LSPs) — usually a third-party company that helps shippers with their warehousing, freight distribution or transportation needs — to provide visibility to their customers. This allows LSPs to do things like provide real-time updates on shipments, share documents, communicate with customers, view analytics and so on.
These features provide the convenience and insight that modern customers have come to expect from tech companies in other industries, and have the potential to greatly benefit the multi-trillion-dollar freight industry.
As a result, Logixboard’s white-label tech solutions have been growing in popularity in the industry. Logixboard says that it saw 14x growth in users over the past 12 months. The company now has a presence in more than 10 different countries.
Logixboard raised this recent funding round to continue its expansion. Part of that will involve hiring. A company spokesperson said that Logixboard plans to use the funding to double its employee headcount, going from 24 employees to about 50. The company is currently hiring for several open positions across its sales, engineering, customer success, marketing and design teams.
“We’re thrilled about this most recent raise because it means we can continue innovating our platform to the benefit of our customers, who oftentimes see an increase in millions of dollars’ worth of revenue just a couple of months after implementing our platform,” CEO and co-founder Julian Alvarez said in a statement. “Over the past 12 months we’ve seen a 14 times growth increase in users and we’re hoping for that number to grow as we expand our product offerings.”
The company previously went through the Techstars accelerator program. It joins a handful of other Seattle-based logistics companies, including Convoy, Radiant, Flexpoint and more.
