HaulHub Technologies, a logistics startup serving the construction industry, announced Thursday it has secured $30 million in Series B funding to expand its transportation management platform.
Led by funds and accounts advised by T. Rowe Price Associates and Durable Capital Partners LP, the funding will be used to accelerate hiring of engineers and support and operations staff.
“This is the biggest raise we’ve ever done,” Brady Murray, chief business officer, told FreightWaves. Founded in 2015, Boston-headquartered HaulHaul has intentionally stayed lean, he said, “and now we’re seeing this level of explosive growth and demand to grow more quickly.”
The raise shines a light on the unique features of the dump truck market, which differs from the tractor-trailer space in several key respects.
First, it’s not a point-to-point market, where a truck is delivering cargo from one place to another, Murray explained. “It’s: ‘I need you to do 10 loads of gravel from here to there.’ Or: ‘You need to pick up dirt from one side of the job site to another.’ So it’s a different dynamic.”
Another differentiator is the number of vertically integrated companies that manage quarries, plants and job sites simultaneously. “Often we find our customers playing all three segments of those markets,” Murray said, and “having a system that works for all of these parties is very important.”
HaulHub’s connected platform allows construction businesses to book, manage, bill and receive “a ton of insight” into their transportation spend. The startup has deliberately shied away from becoming “Uber for dump trucks,” according to Murray, because that’s not what the market needs.
“All of the big companies can find dump trucks. What they don’t have is any visibility into how much transportation is going to cost them and how efficient or inefficient it is.”
Compared to the Class 8 market, the construction truck sector has been relatively slow to adopt digital solutions. Murray estimates that four or five startups along with a couple of legacy players are developing technology solutions for the industry.
Declining to reveal the number of HaulHub customers, Murray said only that tens of thousands of drivers use the system, and that 25 million miles have been booked through the platform. Several large international and national customers are coming on board this year, and the startup continues to innovate new solutions, whether in the transportation space or throughout the digital supply chain.
“From day one, we have been a customer-driven organization,” Murray said. “All of our product road maps and features are driven by customer needs.”