INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
We want to change the way freight moves,& says Oren Zaslansky, the chief executive and founder of Flock Freight.
His company, which has
been operating in stealth mode for the last two years, has finally emerged with a new solution for freight shipping that purports to bring
in more money to shippers, remove inefficiencies in the current hub-and-spoke model for freight and offer better deals to shipping
customers.
He also got $50 million in financing in the bank in what is one of the largest recent investments in a San Diego-based
company.
For Zaslansky, the shipping business is a family affair
&My parents grew up in the moving business… I grew up around both entrepreneurship and freight,& he says.
Those twin passions led him to
start his own trucking business out of college in the San Diego area
He also launched a brokerage business to support supply chain logistics
The exposure to both is what led Zaslansky to launch Flock Freight and its big new financing round, which closed earlier this week.
The
company raised its cash to change the way shippers move small amounts of goods — those less-than-a-truckload-sized amounts that have to
move through hub-and-spoke operations which increase the time goods are on the road and the possibility for breakage as they&re unloaded and
reloaded onto different delivery vehicles.
We want to disintermediate the infrastructure of hub and spoke,& says Zaslansky
We use our technology to change the way freight moves.
Zaslansky isn''t talking about very small orders that can be delivered through a
service like Roadie — the delivery company that raised $39 million from investors led by Home Depot back in February 2019.
This is still
trucking — it a carpool in a 70-foot-long tractor trailer
Flock Freight works by reaching out to small and mid-size trucking companies and integrating their orders onto the shipments that these
We go to the carriers that are much more used to working with a third party to fill up empty trucks,& Zaslansky says.
Right now, that about
15% of the $110 billion freight and logistics trucking market, Zaslansky says.
The new investments into Flock Freight came fromSignalFire
and GLP Capital Partners in mid-February and they were likely drawn to the company claims that its service can eliminate damage claims,
collect freight from multiple shippers and optimize route delivery for a 40% savings in fuel emissions, and the guaranteed delivery rate of
97.5%.
Companies like Tuft - Needle and Titan Supply Group are already using the company services, according to a statement from Flock
Freight.
Flock Freight makes its market by having a window into the spare capacity of trucks and charging shippers for the exact amount of
capacity that they&re using
&We want to go to a shipper and say — that [cargo] is 75% of the truck and we&ll charge you 75% of the truck,& said Zaslansky
For carriers, they can say that the price they&ve charged is for 100% of the truck and Flock Freight will add another 10 feet of freight and
an additional $1,000 into a carrier pocket, Zaslansky said.
