Load-matching startup snags $50m

KeepTruckin’s latest venture capital infusion has kept momentum rolling in the hotter-than-hot freight-matching technology market.    Silicon Valley-based KeepTruckin, a startup electronic logging device (ELD) provider to the trucking industry, has landed a $50 million Series C round of funding, the company said Tuesday.
   KeepTruckin’s latest round brings its total funding to $78 million, a standout figure even in an industry being flooded with venture capital. KeepTruckin primarily supplies telematics solutions to independent truckers and small fleets. Its offerings include maps and apps for drivers.
   The company released an ELD app a few years ago that allows drivers to comply with a U.S. government mandate to convert from paper to electronic logs. The ELD rule went into effect in December, and will be fully enforced beginning April 1.
   KeepTruckin said it will also use the data collected from its apps to create a load-matching marketplace, joining a crowded field of startups aiming to better connect available loads and capacity.
   The company said it has grown its customer list from 500 to more than 30,000 in the last 12 months, while it expects to have the network of trucks that have downloaded its app grow to 400,000 by the end of 2018.
   KeepTruckin is far from the only game in town when it comes to driver apps, ELDs or load-matching. That list includes everyone from Uber Freight to Transfix to Convoy on the load-matching side (both of which have also raised in the neighborhood of $80 million), to TruckerTools and Konexial on the driver app and ELD side. Both TruckerTools and Konexial have announced in recent months load-matching technology to take data from their other solutions to create marketplaces.
   The KeepTruckin Series C round was led by IVP, with participation from existing investors Scale Venture Partners, Index Ventures and Google Ventures.