Zerobroker raises $6.5M to bring shippers closer to carriers

“Most of the startups in the industry are trying to optimize some aspect of logistics. Zerobroker completely redesigns the logistics from the ground up by bringing all disconnected parts of the logistics industry into one platform, automating most repetitive tasks and challenging the industry’s status quo with their ‘no-broker’ innovation,” Naik said.

Bye-bye brokers?

Zerobroker founder and CEO Georgy Melkonyan, who earned a doctorate in transportation engineering and has worked in the industry for more than 15 years, said he is dedicated to digitizing the industry but, most importantly, to bringing the shipper and carrier closer together.

“Historically, shippers and carriers had to work with brokers because the industry was offline,” Melkonyan said. “Right now is a good time to bring this product to market because there has been enough digitalization in the industry. Truckers have smartphones and some sort of digitalization in their operations. … So let’s bring an all-in-one solution for shippers to run their entire operation in one place and cut the unnecessary fat and have them directly connect with truckers.”

Melkonyan granted that executing this plan and building this technology was much more difficult than he initially expected. Yet as Zerobroker focused on rate transparency and direct communication between the parties, Melkonyan has continued to see 50% customer growth month over month since launching in February and told FreightWaves the company has not churned a single shipper customer, which range from small and midsize businesses to large public companies.

“We don’t charge a dime on transactions and we share all information on loads between both parties. We are just a software platform that gives logistics managers direct access to truckers,” said Melkonyan.

This neutral approach enables the shippers to reach out directly to carriers, and vice versa, when issues arise. For Zerobroker, revenue is generated from a flat monthly subscription fee for both parties to leverage its platform that automates all of the internal processes to keep operating costs lower for everyone involved. These operations include managing insurance, vetting carriers and building loads.

With its new capital, Zerobroker is now focused on continuing to add more customers while providing valuable solutions for its current loyal ones. This means hiring more engineers to focus on some of its current concerns, including contract pricing.

Read more

Paxafe partners with Carrier to improve Lynx offering

Parade secures $17M from I Squared Capital for AI endeavors

Kleinschmidt takes equity position in meshVI