Hwy Haul, a cloud-based freight platform that connects produce shippers and carriers, announced today that it has raised a $10 million Series A round of funding. Eileses Capital and BluePointe Ventures co-led the round with participation from AgFunder, True Blue Partners, and other angel investors. This brings the total amount raised by Hwy Haul to $15.6 million.
As Syed Aman, cofounder and CEO of Hwy Haul explained to me last year, existing methods and workflows for getting fresh produce shipped from farms to stores around the country is still very manual and complex. It can require phone calls with truck brokers to find a carrier, multiple manual temperature checks to ensure food safety, and paying truckers can still take weeks after a haul is delivered. All of this complexity results in low transparency and food waste from loads not being kept at proper temperatures or being sent to the wrong destination.
Hwy Haul is looking to fix all that by automating the process associated with hiring truckers and shipping produce nationwide. The cloud-based system allows truckers to find instant quotes, book loads and reduce paperwork. Shippers (farms, wholesalers, etc.) can more easily hire carriers, monitor the temperature and humidity of loads, and optimize routes.
All of this, the company says, results in greater insights into shipments, reduced wait times and a more optimized supply chain. And if it’s one thing Aman knows, it’s the supply chain. Prior to co-founding Hwy Haul, Aman was Director of Supply Chain at Walmart, where he helped build Walmart’s online grocery platform.
We asked a couple weeks ago whether supply chains are sexy now as there are a raft of startups looking to transform how food is moved about the country. RipeLocker creates containers that adjust factors like oxygen levels and air pressure to extend the shelf life of produce. Varcode uses blockchain and IoT to ensure the items in the cold chain remain cold. And Gatik is creating self driving delivery trucks for the middle mile. And now with $10 million in fresh capital, Hwy Haul can keep these supply chains truckin’.
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