FreightWaves Raises $16M For New Sustainability Platform

Supply chain data startup FreightWaves has raised $16 million in a new round of funding for its sustainability platform, the company said Wednesday.

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Logistics and supply chain information help companies navigate the complexities of shipping and delivering products, and FreightWaves provides market insights, news and real-time data for companies to monitor the freight market.

Triangle Peak Partners led the round, which follows FreightWaves’ $30 million fundraise in July 2020. According to CEO Craig Fuller the company hasn’t dipped into its last fundraise, but this new raise allows FreightWaves to bring on a key investor as well as invest in long-term product research and development. 

“This was more of an opportunity to bring a new investor in and provide additional working capital and liquidity that we could use for some long-term investments,” Fuller said in an interview with Crunchbase News.

Supply chains in general can be fragmented, Fuller said. Last year was a particularly tricky year for companies as the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted supply chains, leading to manufacturing and shipping delays. But FreightWaves’ product looks at real-time market conditions and makes it “actionable” for companies, Fuller said.

FreightWaves, which is based in Chattanooga, Tennessee, saw its annual recurring revenue for the first quarter of 2021 grow 80 percent year over year, while its media business grew 130 percent year over year, according to the company.

“(Freight is) a significant amount of global GDP and it’s been massively underserved by digital technology and data,” said Tyler Peterson, a partner at Triangle Peak Partners. “And most of the players who are providing data, their data sources are weeks, if not months, old.”

The new money will be used to fund the 5-year-old company’s FreightWavesCarbon Intelligence platform expansion and go-to-market strategy. The platform, rolled out last month on Earth Day,  helps companies compare different modes of transportation and pick the best way to mitigate carbon emissions, according to the company. Because FreightWaves collects so much data, it has been able to build algorithms to measure carbon footprints.

Other investors in FreightWaves include 8VC 1 and Ascend Venture Capital, per Crunchbase.

Illustration: Li-Anne Dias