Digital freight operator Convoy Inc. raised $160 million in new funding that values the load-matching business at $3.8 billion and helps position the company for a potential public stock offering.
Convoy said in announcing the backing on Thursday that it substantially completed the Series E funding round at the end of the fourth quarter of 2021 and also secured a $150 million line of credit from JPMorgan Chase & Co. and a $100 million loan from specialty finance company Hercules Capital Inc. at the end of last month.
Investment management firm Baillie Gifford & Co. and funds and accounts advised by T. Rowe Price Associates Inc. led the funding round. New investor Park West Asset Management LLC also participated, along with other new and existing investors, according to Convoy.
The funding round followed a $400 million round in November 2019 that valued the company at $2.75 billion. The new funds bring the Seattle-based company’s total equity and venture debt raised to $928 million.
The backing will help Convoy, one of a slew of technology-driven startups looking to use digital tools to make freight marketplaces more efficient, add workers and expand services while bringing the business closer to profitability, said President and Chief Operating Officer Mark Okerstrom. The company sees a public listing as a “very logical step down the road,” Mr. Okerstrom said, although he declined to discuss timing for a possible initial public offering.
“We will be putting ourselves in the position over the course of the next few years to be a public company, if that’s the right thing for us at the time,” he said. “Right now, we’re pretty focused on organic growth.”
The company declined to disclose details of its hiring plans but said half its 200 job openings are in data science and engineering. Its current total head count is 1,300, according to a spokesperson, up from around 800 in late 2019.
The new backing will also help Convoy bolster a “drop and hook” service in which drivers pick up shippers’ preloaded trailers, said Mr. Okerstrom, a former chief executive of travel booking site Expedia Group Inc. Convoy expects to expand its fleet of trailers for the service, called Convoy Go, by 35% to 40% by the end of the year, depending on the availability of equipment, the spokesperson said.
U.S. digital freight brokerage companies raised more than $1 billion in venture funding in 2021, up from $602 million in 2020, according to analytics firm PitchBook Data Inc.
The investment rose as demand for shipping services from restocking by retailers and a surge in consumer e-commerce spending boosted freight volumes. Freight demand more recently is showing signs of pulling back, with rates falling in the spot market for trucking services that are targeted by freight brokers.
Mr. Okerstrom said the slowdown is temporary and doesn’t affect Convoy’s profitability outlook. He declined to say exactly when he expects Convoy to turn a profit but said revenue surpassed $750 million last year and is on track to exceed $1 billion in 2022. Convoy is profitable on a per-unit basis, meaning it makes a profit on individual shipments, but isn’t profitable overall due to its fixed costs, he said.
Convoy is competing in a fragmented freight market in which fellow digital startups face growing pressure from investors to show profits. Rival Transfix Inc. announced plans in September to go public through an agreement with a special-purpose acquisition company, and Uber Technologies Inc.’s Freight unit last year acquired logistics services provider Transplace to add transportation management to its load-matching service.
Established companies such as C.H. Robinson Worldwide Inc., the largest freight broker in North America by revenue, are responding to the digital competitors by adding their own technology tools.
Gross revenues in the domestic transportation management segment that includes freight brokers hit $139 billion last year, up 52.4% from 2020, according to Evan Armstrong, president of Armstrong & Associates Inc., a logistics-industry research group based in Milwaukee.
“It’s still fragmented, but you’re getting companies that are much larger,” said Mr. Armstrong. “So I think you’re going to continue to see more consolidation and more acquisitions of smaller companies.”
Write to Lydia O’Neal at [email protected]
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