Logistics company Leaf Logistics announced Wednesday it has raised $37 million in series B funding led by Sozo Ventures with participation from new investor Madrona Venture Group, previous investors Playground Global, Floodgate, Schematic Ventures and Supply Chain Ventures, and strategic investors including The Intercontinental Exchange and Flexport. Leaf plans to continue efforts to bring cost savings to its shipper customers through more efficient brokerage practices powered by technology.
“What Leaf is doing — building a highly connected and forward-looking view of the industry from the ground up — just can’t be done by incumbents operating within the existing constructs of the industry. … Its fresh, coordination-first approach has resonated with industry leaders who see the incredible value that comes from network coordination at scale and the efficiency it brings,” said Spencer Foust, managing director at Sozo Ventures.
Through its two main platform solutions — Leaf Adapt and Leaf Flex — the logistics company is able to deliver these efficiencies to its 425 shipper and more than 550 carrier customers.
Using Leaf Adapt, shippers can get an overarching view of their transportation needs, and by leveraging the data behind more than $23 billion of transportation spend, can build better routing guides, find drivers back hauls and fully utilize the capacity available to them while lowering carbon emissions for carriers and shippers.
| Funding details | Leaf Logistics |
|---|---|
| Funding amount | $37 million |
| Funding round | Series B |
| Lead investor | Sozo Ventures |
| Secondary investors | Madrona Venture Group, Playground Global, Floodgate, Schematic Ventures, Supply Chain Ventures, The Intercontinental Exchange and Flexport |
| Business goals for the round | Expand technology solutions and double team by the end of 2022. |
| Total funding | $58.7 million |
Leaf Flex, the logistics company’s contracting solution, gives both its carriers and shippers a platform to take a more forward-planning approach toward their transportation relationships and set freight commitments weeks or months at a time.
According to the company, customers have seen an average of 10% productivity gains, helping to grow Leaf Logistics annual revenue 10x over the past year.
“We’ve built a forward-looking view of the industry that helps all participants better coordinate their transportation and eliminate waste in the form of empty miles. Doing so radically improves productivity across the industry so providers can grow their businesses, shippers can rein in costs and gain more predictability, and we can all benefit from fewer wasteful CO2 emissions,” said Anshu Prasad, CEO of Leaf Logistics.
After its latest round of funding, Leaf Logistics plans to continue building out more tools for brokers, shippers and carriers and to double its global workforce by the end of 2022.
“Transportation is one of the largest expenses for most corporations, and it suffers from what is fundamentally a coordination problem that is limited today by the existing tools and processes. We started Leaf to address this by building our platform to be the transportation network of the future. This investment brings us one step closer to our goal to plan and schedule more than 90% of the transportation bought and sold in the U.S.,” said Prasad.
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