Boa Logistics and its Flow Cold Storage have received a majority investment of an undisclosed amount from supply chain private equity firm Cambridge Capital.
Cambridge Capital’s CEO and managing partner, Benjamin Gordon, and principal Matt Smalley will join Boa’s board of directors, according to Thursday’s announcement.
Gordon said Boa’s leadership team has built a unique offering for the cold chain market, an industry that Fortune Business Insights has projected to be worth $647.5 billion by 2028.
“For [shipper] customers, Boa is able to consolidate freight from multiple [shippers] going to the same place. This results in lower price per shipment, shorter transit times, higher on-time deliveries and more economies of scale [or] operational rigor,” Gordon said. “For consignees, Boa is able to have larger, more full trucks, which are able to be unloaded optimally on their docks, [reducing] traffic in distribution centers and [allowing] for economies of scale in getting inventory put away efficiently from individual customers that are smaller.”
Boa’s co-founder and co-CEO, Matthew Mugar, will continue to lead the company and serve on the board of directors along with fellow co-founder Walter Lopes. He told FreightWaves the hurdles of less-than-truckload refrigerated trucking led to the company’s focus.
“We found [cold chain shippers] were facing similar challenges delivering LTL refrigerated [loads] to the big box retailers like Costco, Trader Joe’s, Whole Foods, Kroger and Walmart,” Mugar said. “By grouping similar clients’ products we were able to create heavier densities heading in the same direction, ultimately making a more efficient revolving supply chain for the carriers in our network.
“On top of that, we have invested heavily in a customer service team that is truly 24/7, boots on ground, and we offer a visibility dashboard to utilize as well.”
Boa said it has seen 50% revenue growth and 130% growth in earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization over the last 12 months.
While the founders, Mugar and Walter Lopes, have bootstrapped the company for the past 10 years, they look forward to “Boa 2.0” with Cambridge Capital helping it focus on three growth areas.
Related: Meet the Investor: Ben Gordon inspired by scrappy underdogs and curious billionaires
“One of the things we are most excited about partnering up with Cambridge is the ability to create efficiency across our companies. We believe the future of Boa lies in our ability to create a more productive and systemized consolidation program,” Mugar said.
“Initially, our plans are to move into a new consolidation facility that has more refrigerated and frozen square feet and has more dock doors so that we can scale our growth. Currently we are working in two different locations where we have our office personnel at the Culver City, California, headquarters and our consolidation team at our Vernon, California, warehouse. By bringing all the teams under one roof we will be able to streamline our services and teams better.
“Secondly, we are going to revamp our entire technology suite so that we have the best advantages for our internal team. Lastly, we look to deploy Cambridge’s capital so we can extend Boa’s presence in strategic zones across the nation so that our network grows and our clients can take advantage of those services,” Mugar said.
Watch now: Fireside chat with Cambridge Capital’s Benjamin Gordon
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