Onward Delivery, a Denver-based freight marketplace that connects retail stores to underutilized trucks on the road, announced Wednesday it has closed an oversubscribed $4.7 million seed funding round.
Onward Delivery CEO Grafton Elliott launched the company in 2020 after witnessing the inefficiencies in the freight brokerage industry, where companies typically partner with one delivery company in each market.
These exclusive partnerships cause unnecessary bottlenecks in the supply chain. Elliott said 95 percent of the box trucks leaving warehouse docks are not filled to capacity. About 43 percent of the trucks are completely empty.
With Onward Delivery’s platform, retailers are able to place their shipment to a queue, where it is instantly priced and matched to a truck that is already headed in the same direction. The platform is used by about 20 delivery companies with about 500 trucks, which provides more opportunities for shippers to get their product on the road.
Through the Onward Delivery platform, Elliott said the average time it takes to deliver a heavy piece of furniture or an appliance has been reduced from 35 days to three days. Elliott eventually hopes to offer next-day delivery for heavy pieces of furniture and appliances.
“With the ongoing driver shortage and supply chain issues, there is a dire need to automate and digitize final mile delivery.” Elliott said in a statement. “Our technology connects retailers to unused cargo space already on the road, making drivers more efficient. With the completion of our seed round, we are excited to have the support to build out our operations to fix one of the biggest crises of our time.”
Onward Delivery partners with 75 retail stores, including Slumberland Furniture, Bassett Furniture, Woodley’s Fine Furniture, Element Home and The Tile Shop. The company currently operates in Iowa, Colorado, Nebraska, Georgia, Kansas and Missouri. In the next year, it plans to expand its operations to Texas, California, Florida and Wisconsin.
Onward is run by a team of 10. With the fresh funding, the company expects to hire another 20 people to scale the business. Specifically, the company plans to hire engineers to further build out Onward’s SaaS platform and strengthen the marketplace, with an eye on integrations to make placing shipments a one-click process.
The company also plans to build out its sales team, with the goal of entering a total of 15 markets by the end of 2022.
The seed funding round was led by Range Ventures and Matchstick Ventures and includes follow-on investments from Springtime Ventures and others.
This round also includes participation from angel investors including Andrew Leto, the founder and CEO of Emerge; Jett McCandless, the founder and CEO of Project44; Sean Henry, the founder and CEO of STORD and James Eberhard, the founder and CEO of Fluid Truck.
Nathaniel Zola, a managing member at Matchstick Ventures, said in a statement that Onward Delivery is well-positioned to innovate an industry that has been under-invested in.
“At a moment when everyone is talking about the need to solve supply chain challenges, Matchstick is looking forward to watching Onward bring its final-mile delivery solution to more markets across the country,” Zola said.
