Skip to content
Search AI Powered

Latest Stories

Private equity firm buys minority stake in Uber Freight for $500 million

Funding round comes four weeks after parent company sold off majority interest in Uber Freight’s European arm.

über freight screen cap

Digital freight matching (DFM) player Uber Freight may not be able to turn a profit on its own revenues, but it is excellent at enlisting new investors, as shown by today’s announcement that the private equity firm Greenbriar Equity Group L.P. has agreed to invest $500 million in the business.

The move marks the second time in a month that the firm’s parent company, the ride-hailing pioneer Uber Technologies Inc., has sold off portions of its ownership stake in the young freight unit. In September, Uber Technologies sold a majority of the unit’s European freight arm to the German digital freight forwarding startup sennder, leaving Uber Technologies as a minority shareholder.


Today’s “series A” funding round was led by New York-based Greenbriar, and joined by “an investor group” of unspecified additional partners. Uber Technologies will maintain majority ownership in Uber Freight and will use the new funds to continue to scale its logistics platform and accelerate product innovation to equip shippers with technology to power their supply chains, the company said. In connection with the investment, Greenbriar managing partners Michael Weiss and Jill Raker will join the Uber Freight board of directors.

Launched in 2017 by San Francisco-based Uber, the freight unit was spun off as a standalone business unit in 2018 and continued its expansion in 2019 by opening a Chicago office and expanding operations into Europe and Canada. The unit has also been busily launching new technology platforms over that period, signing API integration partnerships with cloud TMS providers such as Blue Yonder and expanding its enterprise software offering with the launch of Uber Freight Enterprise and Uber Freight Link, both of which put Uber’s technical power directly into the hands of large shippers and provide a central point of control for logistics operations, the company said.

Uber Freight says its goal is to enable trucking companies and their drivers to book loads as seamlessly as they would book an Uber ride, while the company’s suite of on-demand logistics solutions, APIs, and software integrations provide shippers with the ability to seamlessly plan, budget, tender, and track their freight, no matter their procurement needs.

Despite those ambitions, Uber Freight has had trouble turning its model into profits. For its most recent quarter, spanning the three months ending June 30, Uber Freight lost $49 million after collecting $211 million in net revenue, according to the company's earnings report. For the same quarter in 2019, the unit lost $52 million on $167 in net revenue. For context, its parent company Uber Technologies—which also include the ride-hailing and food-delivery divisions—lost $837 million on net revenue of $1.9 billion for the second quarter of 2020. In 2019, those figures included a loss of $656 million on net revenue of $2.9 billion.

However, those results did not discourage Uber Freight’s new investors, who said, “We are excited to support Uber Freight in the next stage of its development with both our financial investment and our industry-leading experience in logistics,” according to a statement by Weiss.

“Uber Freight has created an innovative and effective approach to logistics technology that we believe is highly scalable in the coming years. In particular, we believe that carriers and shippers will be increasingly attracted to the convenience and simplicity that Uber Freight offers in a complex marketplace. We are eager to share the extensive knowledge and expertise we have built through our decades-long involvement in the logistics sector,” Weiss said.

The Latest

More Stories

Stampin’ Up!’s Riverton, Utah, distribution center

Stampin’ Up!’s Riverton, Utah, distribution center

Picking reimagined

What happens when your warehouse technology upgrade turns into a complete process overhaul? That may sound like a headache to some, but for leaders at paper crafting company Stampin’ Up! it’s been a golden opportunity—especially when it comes to boosting productivity. The Utah-based direct marketing company has increased its average pick rate by more than 70% in the past year and a half. And it’s all due to a warehouse management system (WMS) implementation that opened the door to process changes and new technologies that are speeding its high-velocity, high-SKU (stock-keeping unit) order fulfillment operations.

The bottom line: Stampin’ Up! is filling orders faster than ever before, with less manpower, since it shifted to an easy-to-use voice picking system that makes adapting to seasonal product changes and promotions a piece of cake. Here’s how.

Keep ReadingShow less

Featured

autostore AS/RS at toyota materal handling site

New AutoStore AS/RS at Toyota Material Handling’s DC will increase parts volume and fulfillment speed

With its new AutoStore automated storage and retrieval (AS/RS) system, Toyota Material Handling Inc.’s parts distribution center, located at its U.S. headquarters campus in Columbus, Indiana, will be able to store more forklift and other parts and move them more quickly. The new system represents a major step toward achieving TMH’s goal of next-day parts delivery to 98% of its customers in the U.S. and Canada by 2030, said TMH North America President and CEO Brett Wood at the launch event on October 28. The upgrade to the DC was designed, built, and installed through a close collaboration between TMH, AutoStore, and Bastian Solutions, the Toyota-owned material handling automation designer and systems integrator that is a cornerstone of the forklift maker’s Toyota Automated Logistics business unit. The AS/RS is Bastian’s 100th AutoStore installation in North America.

TMH’s AutoStore system deploys 28 energy-efficient robotic shuttles to retrieve and deliver totes from within a vertical storage grid. To expedite processing, artificial intelligence (AI)-enhanced software determines optimal storage locations based on whether parts are high- or low-demand items. The shuttles, each independently controlled and selected based on shortest distance to the stored tote, swiftly deliver the ordered parts to four picking ports. Each port can process up to 175 totes per hour; the company’s initial goal is 150 totes per hour, with room to grow. The AS/RS also eliminates the need for order pickers to walk up to 10 miles per day, saving time, boosting picking accuracy, and improving ergonomics for associates.

Keep ReadingShow less
US Bank truck shipments Q3

U.S. Bank: truck freight shipments and spending slow their decline

Truck freight shipments and spending continued to contract in the third quarter, albeit at a slower pace than earlier this year, according to the latest U.S. Bank Freight Payment Index.

“The latest data continues to show some positive developments for the freight market. However, there remain sequential declines nationwide, and in most regions,” Bobby Holland, U.S. Bank director of freight business analytics, said in a release. “Over the last two quarters, volume and spend contractions have lessened, but we’re waiting for clear evidence that the market has reached the bottom.”

Keep ReadingShow less
nimble smart robots for fedex

FedEx picks Nimble for fulfillment automation

Parcel giant FedEx Corp. is automating its fulfillment flows by investing in the AI robotics and autonomous e-commerce fulfillment technology firm Nimble, and announcing plans to use the San Francisco-based startup’s tech in its own returns network.

The size of FedEx’s investment wasn’t disclosed, but the company was the lead investor of Nimble’s $106 million “series C” funding round, announced last week. The round was co-led by existing shareholder Cedar Pine LLC.

Keep ReadingShow less

Logistics gives back: October 2024

For the past seven years, third-party service provider ODW Logistics has provided logistics support for the Pelotonia Ride Weekend, a campaign to raise funds for cancer research at The Ohio State University’s Comprehensive Cancer Center–Arthur G. James Cancer Hospital and Richard J. Solove Research Institute. As in the past, ODW provided inventory management services and transportation for the riders’ bicycles at this year’s event. In all, some 7,000 riders and 3,000 volunteers participated in the ride weekend.


Keep ReadingShow less