YC-backed Oway raises $4M to build a decentralized ‘Uber for freight’

Thousands of semitracs cut across the US highway system every day are sheltering a privacy: they simply About Half full.

This inefficiency represents a million billion dollars opportunities. And a few companies such as Uber Freight and Flat Frite are already chasing as part of a wide business models that match the goods sales companies of truck drivers.

San Francisco-Based Startup Oway is looking for a narrow business model that is more closely similar to Uber For Freight, especially on the most inefficient long-distance route. However, it is a model that believes that it can have a bigger size to affect the country’s economy.

Established in 2021 and supported by the Wi -Combinator and General Catalist Oo recently closed $ 4 million seeds in search of this goal. Founder Philip Nadzafov told TechCrunch that investors have bought the idea of ​​Wow because his company has already created a way to reduce the cost of a palette shipping in the United States, using a cute mixture of new and some old technology.

Of course there is artificial intelligence, in the form of machine learning that helped find and match the cargo with the empty trailer space and a convenient destination (or a short way). There are also many standard shipping and insurance documentation that goes with Way Freight.

However, the OU’s ride-share cargo pitch is known as the “electronic logging device” (ELDS) installed in the trucks that cross our country.

ELDS became a government compulsory about a decade ago, eliminating the paper logbooks and making tracking more secure and more efficient. It makes federal rules tightening the maximum driving for shippers and drivers, theoretically reduces fatigue.

Devices have become a source of debate for many drivers concerned about additional surveillance. And there is some evidence that committed security facilities May offset by increasing aggressive driving Since drivers cannot easily shake their hours.

However, the devices are still the basis of what the OW is doing, because ELDS also made it possible to place tabs in the right place of a truck in real time.

With this information, the Owe can work with shippers to identify destinations near the planned route already planned. When the trailer has an empty space – which is often, according to Nadzafov – Oo can help customers keep cargo in those trailers at a fraction of general expenditure.

The result is that OWE claimed that it could reduce a sub -2,5 pound palette between Los Angeles and Dallas by about $ 225 to $ 60.

“You don’t need … Buy a full 50-some foot truck to move [something] To get good prices all over the country, “He said.” If you have a box of more than 100 pounds you want to go across the country, you should be able to be able to be able to be able to now with your current technology … do this. And this is a huge problem for us in America. “

This disconnected, Nadzafov argued that the higher shipping rates and consumer prices, but more emitting and more lazy time for trackers. He believes that Oo can solve it and is already working with thousands of vehicles in their fleet, though he said they could not reveal who they could not publish because they had now asked for a relationship for personal stay.

The way Nadzafov pitch it, Ou’s business model is combined with the best aspects of the two main ways, Freight sends by truck to the United States

A model is known as “full truckload”, in which the truck trailers are packed with the product, often in the service of a shipper. These shipments usually go from points to points, provide fast delivery but at higher prices.

The other model is known as “low-trackload” shipping, which is usually involved in sharing multiple shippers in a single truck. It reduces the cost, but it takes longer, because the products often have to bounce between multiple trucks and warehouses before reaching their destination.

The promise of Nadzafov is that the Oui can achieve the speed of full truckload shipping with the cost and mobility of low-truckload shipping. What is further, providing more products directly to the long-distance route, the freight is less likely to be damaged because it is not being removed and reloaded as soon as it returns from the truck to a warehouse and back.

Nadzafov narrates that oo is doing all this in the “decentralized” way, which means that it is not trying to buy the value of the entire trailers and even working with other art brokers in the industry at the top of the career and shippers.

“We want to be oO flexible so that one day the novels of this infrastructure can one day create new businesses and arts,” he said.

Nadzafov says Oo has already gained interest from companies from other countries, but its launch has now concentrated in the United States – because the OWA is only 12 in the part, and how much the country depends on the trucking.

“Trucking is a trillion dollar industry and empty space itself is a 100 billion dollar problem,” he said. “It’s going to happen, I think, in the next 10 years, a very converting movement for the entire trade and logistics sector in the United States, because I believe it is basically mostly business issues.”