Convoy, a nearly five-month-old trucking app, this week announced $16 million in new funding and an expansion beyond its native Washington state.
The Seattle-based company, founded by former Amazon.com employees, was touted as an Uber-like service for cargo trucks at its October debut.
Convoy's website and app allows businesses to immediately reserve local trucks and track their shipments in real time. Company officials said that the trucking industry largely went unchanged for decades and that small businesses, in particular, had difficulty quickly locating and booking trucks.
CEO Dan Lewis told The New York Times that its network already comprises thousands of truckers and that revenue doubled in each month since its inception. The company also announced this week that its service is now available in Oregon.
Top tech executives — including Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and eBay founder Pierre Omidyar — and others provided $2.5 million in initial funding in late October.
The latest round of fundraising included Amazon executive Jeff Wilke, Instagram CEO Kevin Systrom and was led by Silicon Valley venture capital firm Greylock Partners. Greylock's Reid Hoffman and Simon Rothman will also join the company's board.
"Convoy serves a tremendous need for the trucking industry," Hoffman and Rothman said in a statement. "In order to compete, shippers and carriers need the networks between them to be more efficient so they can operate faster and with greater flexibility."
