Freight logistics for the AI era
By: Lainy Painter, Ryan Hrabak and Andrew Ziperski
Today Vooma announced its $13M Series A. We’re excited to lead this investment in the freight industry’s most impressive and comprehensive workflow automation platform. The enthusiasm and traction from Vooma’s customers, which include the logistics industry’s top brokers and carriers, is a testament to the need for better tools for logistics providers. Vooma’s founding team brings together deep logistics industry expertise and tech leaders who have spent their careers building technology for the transportation and logistics industry.
Vooma is purpose-built for freight brokers, who are the critical link between shippers (retailers, manufacturers) and carriers (truck drivers). When a broker gets an email from a retailer requesting a quote for a shipment, an employee has to review the size, weight, timing, origin, destination, check pricing in multiple systems, make sense of different data sources, and then send a quote back to win the load, a tedious process completed hundreds of times per week. When they win the load, they extract dozens of critical data points from the email and enter them into systems manually. Vooma seamlessly connects these systems and automates this disjointed workflow — all without the broker leaving their inbox.
Vooma is building a first-of-its-kind multi-channel AI agent for logistics. The company’s first products, Vooma Build and Vooma Quote, have proven to be a sharp wedge into the market as order entry is a painful, manual process that sits at the top of the logistics funnel. Through many conversations with the freight industry’s leading brokers, it was clear that Vooma not only has the best product in the market, but is leading the charge in introducing AI within logistics. Today the company announced Vooma Voice, an AI voice agent, which can make and receive calls for brokers and carriers to streamline tasks like inbound load bookings, appointment scheduling, and carrier check calls. In just two short years, the company has launched a comprehensive platform that is set to transform logistics, and is already working with top brokers and carriers including Echo, MODE, Arrive Logistics and NFI.
Beyond the product, we have great faith in the team. Prior to starting Vooma, co-founder and CEO Jesse Buckingham ran a PE-backed logistics software company that offered multiple products: TruckerTools for visibility and digital freight matching, e-Courier for last-mile delivery operations management, and Record360 for fleet management. He has an extensive understanding of the problems experienced by brokers, carriers, and shippers — as well as the shortcomings of existing tools. Co-founder Mike Carter has deep experience building autonomous solutions for the trucking industry, having started his career as a systems engineer within Uber’s autonomous vehicles division and later serving as a founding engineer at Kodiak Robotics. Jesse and Mike’s combined experience is a competitive advantage in an old-school industry where thoughtfully designed and purpose-built AI products can make a huge impact.
We’re excited about Vooma’s mission to improve the resiliency and flexibility of supply chains through autonomous freight management. By automating the process, brokers can save time, focus on relationships, and win more business — a win for the entire supply chain.
Why We Invested in Vooma was originally published in Craft Ventures on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.