Former Convoy engineers take another swing at trucking tech with new Seattle startup

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‍Andrew Huff and Oliver Jones aren’t done trying to build software for the trucking industry.

The entrepreneurs are the co-founders of Manifold Freight, a new Seattle startup that is part of the latest Y Combinator cohort.

Huff and Jones were engineering leaders at Convoy, the digital trucking marketplace company that was valued at nearly $4 billion before a stunning collapse last year. The Seattle company sold its assets to Flexport this past fall.

It didn’t take Huff and Jones much time to take their own startup leap.

Manifold is focusing on “spot freight,” an industry term that describes one-off, ad-hoc shipments that can be picked up by carriers.

The company’s software aggregates spot freight opportunities for carriers in one place. Its initial focus is on medium-to-large carriers that own their trucks.

Carriers traditionally work with multiple brokers or use public load boards such as DAT to find shipments. Those boards take as much as a 30% cut of the shipment price, according to Manifold — money that would otherwise go to carriers.

Manifold generates revenue by charging carriers a fee to use their software, based on the size of their fleet.

The company also wants to build tools for shippers, to help them find freight capacity.

The ultimate vision is to have a “full-fledged spot marketplace for shippers, brokers, and carriers,” Huff told GeekWire.

Manifold shares some similarities to Convoy; both aimed to increase efficiency between truckers and shippers.

But Convoy was different because it took on risk of each load, Jones said. The company would agree with a shipper to take a load, then would try to find a carrier — and make money on the difference, according to Jones.

“We on the other hand are not taking this approach,” Jones said. “We are simply enabling carriers, brokers and shippers to find each other on our marketplace for a fee and at no point are we taking responsibility for the load.”

Jones was an early Convoy engineer, joining the startup in 2017, eventually becoming director of engineering last year.

Huff joined Convoy in 2018 and was an engineering manager.

Convoy raised nearly a billion dollars from top investors including Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates. It served Fortune 500 giants including Home Depot, Procter & Gamble, Unilever, and Anheuser-Busch. The company was among a flock of logistics startups that raised huge gobs of venture capital to build technology aimed at increasing efficiency in trucking and other industries.

But after raising $260 million in 2022, Convoy ran into a freight recession and dampened investor appetite, among other factors that contributed to its shutdown.

Flexport last month launched the “Convoy Platform,” which helps match shippers with small carriers and owner-operators.

Huff and Jones said their experience at Convoy gives them an edge over competitors — both traditional freight industry companies and other newer startups.

“Our experience at Convoy is a massive competitive advantage — learning and working with some of the best folks in the industry,” Huff said.

Manifold has raised $500,000 from Y Combinator and is raising its seed round. It has three employees.

Source; geekwire