In the e-commerce world, on-demand delivery is a customer convenience. In the construction world, it is a necessity. When material arrives late to a job site, the site could be shut down.
Technology platform Curri is attempting to solve that problem with its last-mile, on-demand solution. The company has closed a $6 million Series A funding round led by Brick & Mortar Ventures with participation from existing backer Initialized Capital and new investor Rainfall Ventures.
“Our latest Series A funding enables us to continue our rapid growth and meet the overwhelming demand … but make no doubt this is a global business,” said Matthew Lafferty, co-founder and CEO at Curri. “We’re expanding our services and the markets we reach by providing customers with advanced technology, complete transparency and the fastest delivery options in the industry.”
Curri’s platform enables those shipping construction materials to quickly locate and deliver critical materials. It leverages a concept called “elastic scale,” which is the concept that you only pay for what you need, the company said.
“Oftentimes a traditional fleet leads to underutilized trucks or drivers who sit around waiting for orders to come in. Thanks to its nationwide and diversified fleet, Curri allows for elastic scale and enables distributors to never have to say ‘no’ to a sale,” the company said in a release.
It added that last-mile delivery of construction materials is served by a fragmented market or by more expensive in-house fleets. As a result, delivery decisions are left up to local branches of larger suppliers that have neither the scale nor expertise in locating the right vehicle at the right price. Curri’s platform is able to access everything from sedans for small item deliveries to flatbed trucks.
Curri’s drivers are gig workers, operating in a similar way to Uber drivers, and receive pay per mile. Among its customers are Airgas, Grainger, Lowe’s, Graybar and Lumber Liquidators.
“Suppliers who don’t have the ability to make urgent, on-demand or long-distance deliveries are leaving sales on the table and risk losing customers and business to suppliers who do. Fleet augmentation is the secret weapon of suppliers who care about getting material in their customers’ hands fast,” said Lafferty.
Curri offers daily routes, support teams, proof of delivery, live tracking and enterprise-grade billing and accounts payable integrations, and custom usage reports.
As part of the fundraising round, Darren Bechtel, Brick & Mortar Ventures’ managing partner, will join the Curri board of directors.
“I am pleased to be joining Curri’s board and partnering with Matthew and the Curri team as they continue to scale,” said Bechtel. “Recent supply chain disruptions, both domestic and abroad, and increased complexity in managing logistics have highlighted the need to solve how to move complex cargo more effectively. Curri’s deep layer of predictive machine learning technology has the power to dramatically enhance the industry’s efficiency.”
Click for more Modern Shipper articles by Brian Straight.
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