Dray Alliance, a digital drayage marketplace that connects shippers and truckers for short-range delivery of shipping containers between ports and logistics centers, announced today that it has closed a $10.2 million Series A led by Matrix Partners. Ex-Uber syndicate Moving Capital also participated in the Series A along with previous investors Craft Ventures, Act One Ventures, and Wonder Ventures. Sammi Liu also joins Dray Alliance as COO to lead the company into its next phase of growth, along with Lauren Roberts, VP of Sales.
With 600 percent growth in 2019, Dray Alliance is bringing automation and greater predictability and transparency to drayage, a specialized local segment of the logistics industry that has been underserved by digital technology. Dray Alliance intends to use the Series A to increase automation in its products and scale its hiring in sales, engineering, and operations.
“The rise of e-commerce — accelerated by Amazon Prime — is forcing the logistics industry to a reckoning,” said Jake Jolis, Partner with Matrix Partners. “In an age of hyper-competition and ever-rising expectations on delivery time and reliability, every inch of the logistics supply chain matters. We have seen the rise of digitally enabled ocean freight forwarding and long-haul trucking, yet port logistics — a $50 billion market — has been stubbornly stuck. Drayage has remained the last bastion of extremely manual, paper-based, and inefficient processes in logistics. Dray is perfectly positioned to take advantage of this seismic opportunity.”
As the first asset-free marketplace in drayage, Dray’s technology is designed to improve transparency and transaction speed for both sides of the market. This gives shippers peace of mind for on-time delivery of containers and faster rate quotes, while truckers increase the utilization of their trucks with a mobile app. Dray’s innovative technology solutions includes a web application for shippers and a mobile app for drivers that automates and simplifies drayage transactions.
“We saw an opportunity to transform the way the drayage market works, while making life easier for shippers and truckers,” said Steve Wen, CEO of Dray Alliance. “Instead of shippers guessing status, location, and rate of their containers, Dray Alliance aggregates data from our partners to provide real-time visibility throughout the drayage process. We are helping both shippers and truckers improve efficiency, move containers faster, and eliminate friction in the container shipping process.”
Dray Alliance is currently working with 50+ enterprise customers, including some of the world’s largest containership liners, such as Maersk, CMA-CGM, and APL, several major importers, freight forwarders, and 3rd party logistics providers (3PLs) that are digitizing their supply chains.
In an industry predominantly led by men, Sammi is one of the first female COO’s to lead the trucking industry. She started her career in finance and transitioned to the startup world at Uber, where she was instrumental in conceptualizing Uber’s operations and logistics in LA. She also served as GM of LA-based logistics service, Shyp, where she grew Shyp LA’s shipments 3X and led process improvement initiatives to increase efficiency and improve quality of operations. As COO of Dray, Sammi will be overseeing the company’s Sales, Operations and Finance divisions.
“The goal,” said Sammi, “is to leverage data and technology to build the drayage platform for the modern supply chain. Our team operates with a relentless focus on optimization and automation; we are well-positioned to be the leading tech-drayage company in the industry.”
Lauren Roberts also joins Dray Alliance as VP of Sales. Prior to Dray, Lauren served as AVP of Sales at Samsara, the unicorn in trucking fleet management that has raised $530M, valuing at $6.3B. She also held senior sales positions at Indeni and Cisco as well.
