Fura’s seventh acquisition is here: High-Rise joins an AI-driven freight brokerage roll-up focused on small and midsize players. Jeff Dangelo breaks down why Fura targets sub-$30 million brokerages, how the company says it can onboard an acquisition in about a week, and where agentic AI is already booking nearly 40% of carriers. If you’re watching freight brokerage M&A, automation, or broker margins, this is the takeaway. #FreightBrokerage #LogisticsTech #FreightWaves

Fura has acquired Highrise, a Washington state-based freight brokerage, marking the company’s seventh acquisition as part of a deliberate strategy to buy small and mid-sized brokerages and automate operations using artificial intelligence. CEO Jeff Dangelo said Fura targets brokerages under $30 million in revenue — a segment largely ignored by private equity — and uses AI to unlock operating improvements of 2 to 10 times EBITDA.

The deal underscores a broader thesis: that the long tail of freight brokerages, which account for roughly 12% of industry revenue outside the top 1,000 brokers, are structurally underequipped. “88% of the revenue is coming from the top 1,000 sort of brokers in our industry,” Dangelo said, noting that smaller shops often carry debt, lack compliance infrastructure, and have not found a scalable growth model.

Dangelo outlined a four-step integration playbook that begins with deep carrier compliance diligence, followed by wiring up the acquired business on day one using AI to structure previously unstructured data. Step three deploys agentic AI to handle carrier communications — nearly 40% of booked carriers are now sourced through AI agents operating via email, text, and phone. The fourth step gives the acquired brokerage’s shipper customers access to Fura’s visibility technology.

“It takes us about a week to onboard the new businesses. I remember Brad Jacobs used to say it takes them about 2 years to integrate. It takes us about a week because the technology does a lot of the work,” said Dangelo.

The speed of integration is central to Fura’s valuation arbitrage. The company’s selling, general, and administrative costs run between 35% and 40%, compared to an industry range of 65% to 85% or higher. D’Angelo pointed to one acquisition completed a couple of years ago: the brokerage had $26 million in revenue when Fura first engaged it, had declined to $12 million by the time of closing, and has since grown to over $30 million. Its headcount dropped from roughly 30 people to six as automation absorbed manual tasks.

Fura’s overall revenue has grown from $10 million to over $100 million over the past two years, with Dangelo stating that 50% of that growth was organic rather than acquisition-driven. He described the addressable opportunity as “a many-billion-dollar opportunity to sort of supercharge businesses that couldn’t have done it on their own.”

On post-Montgomery compliance risk — a growing liability concern for small brokerages — Dangelo said most sub-$30 million shops still rely on manual carrier vetting through tools like SaferSys. Fura checks every shipment programmatically in seconds rather than minutes or hours, with a human review as a final sign-off. “Speed is everything,” Dangelo said. “Speed is the difference between booking a truck and not booking a truck.”

• Fura completed its 7th brokerage acquisition with Highrise, targeting sub-$30M revenue brokerages it can onboard in roughly one week using AI.
• Nearly 40% of Fura’s booked carriers are now sourced through agentic AI via email, text, and phone, with SG&A costs of 35–40% versus an industry norm of 65–85%-plus.
• Fura grew from $10M to over $100M in revenue over two years, with half of that growth coming organically rather than through acquisitions.

This Summary is generated thanks to a transcription of the interview, for the full interview please enjoy the video above.

The latest rail traffic data is in, and it paints a surprising picture of economic recovery. The Freight Rail Index has reached its second-highest level since 2008, indicating a significant rebound in the industrial sector. We break down the North American carload and intermodal numbers, highlighting key growth areas and shifts in freight patterns, including a notable 4.7% increase in US carload traffic when excluding coal. This trend suggests a broader economic expansion beyond just data centers. Discover what these figures mean for the future of manufacturing and logistics.

North American rail traffic rose 3.6% in Week 31, with carloads up 3.9% and intermodal up 3.3%, according to Association of American Railroads data — and a broader monthly snapshot shows the industry’s Freight Rail Index, which measures seasonally adjusted volume excluding coal and grain, has now climbed to its highest level since 2008 after four consecutive months of gains.

The figures matter to carriers, brokers, and shippers because rail volume grew faster than overall GDP during the period — a milestone that, according to Bill Stephens, hasn’t been seen since before the Great Recession. “Rail traffic grew faster than overall GDP,” Stephens said. “We haven’t seen that in a long time.”

Stripping out coal, the numbers look even stronger. U.S. carload volume excluding coal was up 4.7% for Week 31, well ahead of the flat volumes recorded over the prior four weeks. July carload traffic, also excluding coal, was up 3.2%, while intermodal set a record for the month of July and posted a 6.1% year-over-year gain — its sixth consecutive month of growth, and the seventh straight month of overall carload expansion.

“Manufacturing and rail activity are moving along together. The manufacturing is expanding at a pace not seen in several years, which underscores the close link between factory output and rail volumes,” Stephens said, citing AAR’s Rail Industry Overview released the week of the data.

Intermodal’s momentum is drawing freight away from trucks, with a 34% price discount between intermodal and truckload rates cited as a key driver. FreightWaves data showed both the Truckload Volume Index and loaded rail container volume each rose exactly 4.4% over the most recent three-month period — a near-perfect offset that helps explain why spot truck demand has not accelerated despite a broader freight recovery. Stephens noted that shippers typically need a sustained belief in economic stability and tight capacity before committing to intermodal conversions.

Geographically, growth is shifting. North-south corridors — particularly Chicago-to-Atlanta lanes and new intermodal services connecting Mexico’s industrial regions to the U.S. Southeast and Chicago — are outperforming the traditionally dominant, and now mature, Chicago-to-East Coast lanes.

On the regulatory front, a U.S. District Court upheld the Federal Railroad Administration’s two-person crew rule, which the FRA finalized in 2024. Several Class I railroads, the AAR, and the Short Line Association had challenged the rule as arbitrary and beyond the FRA’s authority. The decision leaves open whether railroads will pursue further appeals. Fuller noted the ruling creates a tension with broader DOT policy encouraging autonomous truck development, with railroads arguing the mandate prevents them from exploring single-person or autonomous operations. Separately, Amtrak is facing locomotive availability problems in the Midwest, prompting Stephens to file a Freedom of Information request with the agency Monday morning to determine the scope of the issue.

• The AAR Freight Rail Index (excluding coal and grain) reached its highest level since 2008 after four straight months of gains.
• U.S. carloads excluding coal rose 4.7% in Week 31, and intermodal set a July record with 6.1% year-over-year growth.
• A U.S. District Court upheld the FRA’s two-person crew rule, leaving railroads’ path to autonomous or single-operator trains uncertain.

This Summary is generated thanks to a transcription of the interview, for the full interview please enjoy the video above.

FreightWaves dives into the surge of new trucking authorities and whether this capacity is sustainable. With tender rejections flat and demand picking up, we explore the risks brokers face with new MC numbers and no safety ratings. Plus, is mode conversion to rail a real solution to truckload capacity constraints?

A burst of new trucking operating authorities in the second and third quarters of 2025 has produced a net gain of more than 5,000 unique authorities year to date, even after 19,594 net revocations, according to FreightWaves SONAR CNDCA data reviewed on August 12. But Julie Van de Kamp said the headline number overstates available capacity, arguing that brokers and shippers are unlikely to tender freight to carriers with brand-new MC numbers and no safety rating given current fraud conditions and liability exposure.

The net gain broke down unevenly across quarters: Q1 produced a gain of just 400 authorities, Q2 added 2,910, and Q3 has posted a net gain of 1,996 through the week ending August 7 — 914 behind Q2’s pace but 1,596 ahead of Q1. Van de Kamp cautioned that a visible June spike in the data is partly a data artifact from a registration outage tied to the Modus system transition, during which no authority data was collected from May 16 through June 5.

“Are brokers still tendering freight to carriers with new MC numbers and no safety rating based on current fraud conditions as well as certainly litigation and liability concerns?” Van de Kamp said. “I don’t know that it’s necessarily translating to more capacity being available.”

“I don’t see the case for continued increase in capacity because you’re not going to be able to find drivers to fill the seats. That even if fleets wanted to expand, we’ve heard this consistently, is that they’re having to pay more for drivers. The driver environment is getting harder and harder. And that is going to keep the cap on capacity.” — Julie Van de Kamp

Van de Kamp pointed to immigration policy as a structural constraint on the driver pool. Bureau of Labor Statistics data put the share of non-U.S.-born immigrant drivers at roughly 20% as of 2019, she noted, while insurance industry estimates place that figure as high as 40% of the total driver population. Tightening immigration enforcement, she argued, removes what has historically been a relief valve for driver supply, compounding an already aging driver demographic.

On the demand side, SONAR’s Truckload Volume Index shows volumes running above the prior three-year average on a seasonal basis, with a minor uptick visible since August 8. Tender rejections held at 13.5% as of the August 12 update, in line with April levels but showing some cooling in recent weeks. Loaded inbound ocean container volumes tracked by the IOTI index are running higher than last year since June, though the pattern is more elongated than the sharp, tariff-driven import spike seen in 2024. Inventory levels remain a watch item: LMI data shows inventories down 9% year over year.

A mode-conversion dynamic is also reshaping apparent truckload volume. SONAR O-Rail data show domestic intermodal loaded containers up 7% over the past two years and up 5% over the past six months, while international loaded containers are down 13% over two years and down 2% over six months. Craig Fuller said the shift helps explain why tender rejections have softened without a corresponding drop in overall freight demand.

Looking ahead, Fuller and Van de Kamp both expect demand to continue rising into peak season, with the outcome of the end-of-August “brake check” period — a seasonal inflection point for capacity — likely to signal whether the market is entering a hotter cycle. Van de Kamp said structural supply constraints, combined with potential broadening of industrial activity beyond data centers into housing and auto, could extend the current upcycle well beyond the summer of 2026 timeline some analysts have cited.

• Net trucking operating authorities are up more than 5,000 year to date, but 19,594 revocations occurred over the same period, and a June data spike is partly a Modus registration backlog artifact.
• Domestic intermodal loaded containers rose 7% over two years while international intermodal volumes fell 13%, pointing to mode conversion rather than outright demand loss.
• Driver supply constraints — including an aging workforce and tightening immigration enforcement, with immigrants estimated at 20%-40% of drivers — are seen limiting any meaningful capacity expansion.

This Summary is generated thanks to a transcription of the interview, for the full interview please enjoy the video above.

GXO Logistics CEO Patrick Kelleher reveals the immense growth in AI data center demand, predicting capacity will triple by 2030. Discover how this surge, along with warehouse robotics and redomestication, is reshaping the global supply chain and creating new opportunities for logistics providers. Kelleher shares GXO’s strategy for tackling these trends, including advanced automation and strategic partnerships.

Data center capacity will triple by 2030, and GXO Logistics is positioning its supply chain services to capture that demand well into the next decade, according to Patrick Kelleher, CEO of the $13 billion contract logistics company. Kelleher, speaking on FreightWaves Today, said GXO’s data center business — which covers both the forward build and the maintenance and sustainment of facilities — is already seeing “substantially accelerated growth” and he expects the momentum to continue through at least 2027.

The sustainability of that demand is a question freight professionals are watching closely, given ongoing debate about power constraints and the risk of overbuilding. Kelleher cited Nvidia’s half-trillion-dollar investment commitment as evidence that capital continues to flow into the sector. “I don’t see the demand for data center capacity diminishing even into 2030, 2035,” he said. GXO has developed an offsite rack assembly and wiring process — moving that work out of the cramped data center floor into a production-line environment — that allows it to stand up facilities in as little as 30 days and build for multiple data centers out of a single facility.

“I subscribe to the statistics that are out there that data center capacity is going to triple by 2030. I believe that because if I look at GXO as just a small $13 billion revenue organization that is part of a bigger economy, our focus on AI and the application of AI in our business is one of our top priorities, and I only see it accelerating as we go forward.” — Patrick Kelleher, CEO, GXO Logistics

On robotics, Kelleher said GXO has completed more than 45 humanoid pilots, with another launching in Europe in the second half of this year. He projected that the cost of a humanoid unit will be cut in half within two years, while operating costs — currently running $10 to $15 per hour — should fall below $10 per hour over the same timeframe. Kelleher put total operating costs at $15 to $20 per hour within two years, a threshold he said is necessary to achieve return on investment. GXO currently has humanoids successfully picking cosmetics and apparel. Power consumption, he added, has not been a limiting factor; 40% of GXO’s warehouses already carry high robotics fit-outs, and battery technology improvements are keeping energy demand manageable.

Kelleher also pointed to aerospace and defense as a high-growth vertical. He formed a defense advisory board in February, staffed with former senior military officials from the supply chain side, and announced a UK partnership — branded Taurus — with Amentum and Maersk to pursue contracts with the British government. Kelleher confirmed GXO is targeting a total addressable market tied to the U.S. defense bill that has been cited at $1.5 trillion. “That’s the number we use,” he said. “And that’s a good TAM.”

On the consumer side, Kelleher said GXO’s retail, CPG, and e-commerce verticals have been “relatively flat on volume” in aggregate but that the company expects to be “at or better than last year” for peak season based on current customer behavior. He also flagged reindustrialization as a genuine shift reshaping warehouse location strategy: as manufacturers move production onshore, logical warehouse locations are migrating away from coastal ports toward interior markets. Kelleher specifically named Texas, Georgia, Florida, Phoenix, Salt Lake City, Indianapolis, Louisville, and Columbus, Ohio as markets seeing accelerated activity, with intermodal gaining relevance as raw materials — rather than finished goods — increasingly move through West Coast ports.

Life sciences rounded out GXO’s positive demand picture, with Kelleher characterizing volume there as “very solid.” Taken together, he said, the company has “a really positive outlook to the end of the year” across its industry verticals.

• GXO CEO Patrick Kelleher says data center capacity will triple by 2030, with company revenue from build, maintenance, and sustainment work expected to grow well into 2027.
• Humanoid robot operating costs are projected to fall from $10–$15 per hour today to sub-$10 within two years, with total costs reaching $15–$20 per hour over the same period after more than 45 completed pilots.
• Reindustrialization is shifting warehouse demand inland, with Texas, Georgia, Phoenix, Salt Lake City, Indianapolis, Louisville, and Columbus, Ohio identified as the fastest-growing markets.

This Summary is generated thanks to a transcription of the interview, for the full interview please enjoy the video above.