Hunter Yaw, our VP of Product Management at Loadsmart, recently spoke with Amy Hutchinson of Deloitte Canada on her podcast: “Developing Digitally: Episode 20 with Loadsmart”. In this podcast, the two discussed how Loadsmart is using innovative technology to bring greater efficiency to the over the road market in the United States and, more recently, in Canada as well.
Between artificial intelligence and machine learning, Loadsmart is bringing the latest technologies to the freight market and we’re always happy to share our insights into how these tools are shaping this market.
To be recognized as an industry leader Loadsmart had to demonstrate excellence in growth, innovation, and leadership. Based on Frost & Sullivan’s key business performance categories such as visionary innovation, and performance and customer impact, we earned a solid nine, putting us well above the other evaluated companies.
Sipla Paul, Industry Analyst at Frost & Sullivan, said, “Apart from a lack of load and carrier visibility, pricing opacity has been one of the key deterrents to the adoption of digital brokerage solutions. Loadsmart has made possible instant pricing across all lanes in the United States (over 900,000) using machine learning, which is a tremendous step forward in automating the freight brokerage process. Loadsmart’s ability to offer an all-in instant price for shippers before hiring the carrier is a unique value proposition that strikes at the heart of the freight brokerage process.”
“For large private fleets, the integration of Loadsmart with their TMS for semi-automated route guide or fully-automated dynamic route guide provides the ease and agility that translates into better asset utilization, whether human or truck, and, thereby, more cost savings,” said Silpa “The efficacy of Loadsmart’s solution is evidenced by its revenue growth in recent years (350% year-on-year in 2018) achieved by on-boarding fortune 500 companies such as Daimler Trucks North America, Anheuser-Busch, and Albertsons/Safeway.”
Ricardo Salgado and Felipe Capella, co-founders, Loadsmart
Ricardo Salgado, CEO, Loadsmart, said, “We’re pleased to see all of our hard work come to fruition and are incredibly proud of the entire Loadsmart team. Since inception, our mission has been to help shippers more with less, by leading with technology and complement it with strategic partnerships. Frost & Sullivan’s “Company of the Year” award is strong validation of our approach as we look to dramatically accelerate growth in 2019.”
Here’s what some of customers and investors have to say:
“To manufacture trucks, we need carriers to deliver components and parts to our plants. Offering a customized app to our contracted carriers gives them first access to our spot business and improves critical points in our supply chain.” – Lori Heino-Royer, director of business innovation at Daimler Trucks North America
“We see huge potential with Loadsmart. Forward integrations between ocean shipping and over-the-road services can create incredible synergies and eventually provide a full service to shippers.” – Sune Stilling, Head of Maersk Growth
“Loadsmart has a solid company strategy and exciting distribution plan. They have built an outstanding team with advanced technology that can be deployed alongside our investment portfolio to digitize and accelerate supply chain and transportation logistics execution.” – Emmett McCann, Managing Director and Co-portfolio Manager, Oaktree
“Chromo focuses on investing in companies leveraging AI in different industries. We have been very impressed with how Loadsmart leverages huge data sets to predict future outcomes and automate tasks. We’re looking forward to scaling the technology and driving this forward.” – Marcelo Ferreira, Managing Director, Chromo Invest
No doubt 2019 will be an interesting year and we can’t wait to see what it has in store.
Recently, our vice president of operations, Erik Malin, spoke with the “Logistics of Logistics” podcast host, Joe Lynch. Joe interviews senior level 3PL providers and business professionals in the logistics and transportation industry. In this episode, Erik and Joe discussed how innovative technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) are changing the freight brokerage space. The two also talked about Loadsmart’s dedication to its customers, and how the company’s use of strategic partnerships has made it a leader in the industry.
Loadsmart was recently named to the inaugural FreightWaves Freight.Tech25 awards at MarketWaves18. The award recognizes the most innovative and disruptive companies in freight. The original list of 100 companies was paired down to 25 after being evaluated and ranked on a 1-25 point basis. The panel of judges – 60 in total – included industry executives, academics and investors.
Felipe Capella, co-founder and chief product officer of Loadsmart, said: “This accolade is a further testament to Loadsmart leading the way in technology for this industry.” Between the award nominations, analyst recognitions, and our most recent funding announcement, it’s fair to say that it’s been an exciting time here at Loadsmart.
This isn’t the first time Loadsmart has been recognized for innovation in the supply chain industry either. Loadsmart was recognized by CB Insights for supply chain disruption, and by Gartner as a Gartner Cool Vendor.
2018 has been a big year for us, and we’re excited to see what 2019 will bring for us.
NEW YORK, NY – October 9, 2018 – Loadsmart, a digital freight broker, today announced it has raised $21.6 million in series A funding led by Maersk Growth, Connor Capital SB and Chromo Invest. This brings the total investment in Loadsmart to date to $34.7 million following previous seed investment and a convertible notes round. The current investment will be used to scale Loadsmart’s operations team while doubling down on product and engineering.
Loadsmart leverages artificial intelligence to automate the truckload booking flow in the United States. It provides instant prices to shippers with capacity guaranteed on all U.S. lanes. Through its automated platform, shippers can book a truck in seconds manually or integrate via an API to have a server-to-server booking with no human intervention.
Loadsmart co-founders Ricardo Salgado and Felipe Capella
Maersk Growth is joining Loadsmart as one of its leading investors. Maersk Growth is the launchpad for new ventures at A.P. Moller – Maersk, the world’s largest container shipping company. A.P. Moller – Maersk serves 343 ports in 121 countries with 18.3 percent market share in container capacity worldwide.
“We see huge potential with Loadsmart. Forward integrations between ocean shipping and over-the-road services can create incredible synergies and eventually provide a full service to shippers,” said Sune Stilling, head of Maersk Growth.
Loadsmart also signed a strategic partnership with funds managed by Oaktree Capital Management, L.P. (“Oaktree”), with a broad goal of collaborating in ways that are mutually beneficial to both organizations.
Emmett McCann, managing director and co-portfolio manager, Oaktree, said, “Loadsmart has a solid company strategy and exciting distribution plan. They have built an outstanding team with advanced technology that can be deployed alongside our investment portfolio to digitize and accelerate supply chain and transportation logistics execution.”
Chromo Invest also joined as a lead investor. Marcelo Ferreira, managing director, Chromo Invest, said, “Chromo focuses on investing in companies leveraging AI in different industries. We have been very impressed with how Loadsmart leverages huge data sets to predict future outcomes and automate tasks. We’re looking forward to scaling the technology and driving this forward.”
“We are at our core a data company. With the highest ratio of engineers in the industry, we were the first to introduce truckload instant pricing and booking, and the market’s first server-to-server autonomous truckload booking via our API. This tech-first approach has allowed us to set in place a fully scalable and automated distribution model,” said Felipe Capella, co-founder and chief product officer, Loadsmart.
Ricardo Salgado, co-founder and CEO, Loadsmart, said, “Our strategy has been to focus exclusively on product development and technology. Now we are ready to grow. This round of investment will enable us to increase the business exponentially while maintaining high-service levels. It will also enable us to scale without losing the edge on innovation and technology.”
Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in its research publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner’s research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.
New York, NY, Loadsmart, a technology company that specializes in full truckload shipping, was named by Gartner as a Cool Vendor in Intelligent Supply Chain Execution Technologies.
The note addresses how “embedded intelligence is becoming an essential competency of emerging supply chain execution technologies. Supply chain leaders can use this research to learn how emerging supply chain execution vendors commercialize innovation.”
Loadsmart was recognized as one of five companies providing emerging supply chain execution technologies.
“We are at the forefront of technology innovation when it comes to executing truckload shipments,” said Felipe Capella, co-founder and chief product officer, Loadsmart. “We were the first company to provide an instant pricing and booking experience for truckloads in the United States, enabling shippers to access live rates via their own system via an easy-to-implement API. We believe Gartner’s recognition is the result of hard work from our multi-disciplinary team.”
Loadsmart co-founders Ricardo Salgado and Felipe Capella
Over the last five years, Loadsmart has been focused on helping shippers and carriers execute their truckload shipments in a much more efficient manner. This effort includes creating better experiences for both parties, as well as improving and automating back-office processes to reduce internal costs and provide better rates to all involved. Recent innovations include fully-automated server to server truckload booking (without human intervention) capability, accepting 100 percent of tenders and guaranteeing capacity; a load management mobile app for its internal team; and a tool to auto-classify shipment documents (BOL, invoices, POD, etc.) with machine learning technology.
Ricardo Salgado, co-founder and CEO, Loadsmart, said, “At Loadsmart, we are obsessed with automating full truckload shipping. Our success is based on the fact that our technology optimizes the booking journey of a truck as well as our capacity to dramatically enhance our service levels and reliability, which is the number one concern of our enterprise customers.”
Gartner’s Cool Vendors in Intelligent Supply Chain Execution Technologies research note can be found here. (Gartner subscription required)
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Recent Loadsmart mentions in Gartner research include:
Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in its research publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner’s research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.
