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Convoy raises $62M from Bill Gates and other luminaries to transform trucking
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Re: Convoy raises $62M from Bill Gates and other luminaries to transform trucking
#22This type of system already exists. Their are plenty of exchanges where truckers or trucking companies can get matched with a load or pickup work.
I don't understand what makes this so transforming?
Re: Convoy raises $62M from Bill Gates and other luminaries to transform trucking
#23Walmart just lightly threatened carriers & owner operators that if they work for Amazon they can expect lower priority from Walmart in the future (1) Walmart presently represents ~14% of the total capacity of one of America's largest carriers - Swift transport - and likely similarly important elsewhere. (2) Obvious outcome down the road is that one of these behemoths snaps up a convoy / other plays in the space to se…
Kind of tangential to the discussion here, but Walmart's threats are empty. Amazon is currently constrained by trucking capacity, and would gladly swallow up more.
Re: Convoy raises $62M from Bill Gates and other luminaries to transform trucking
#24I was under the impression YC Continuity existed for the sake of investing in later stage YC companies. Convoy is not YC company. Is YC Continuity just a generic fund now?
Y Combinator raising $1 billion for new fund
Re: Convoy raises $62M from Bill Gates and other luminaries to transform trucking
#25Next up, they will hit up on the idea of dedicated roads for truck convoys; also, a single engine to pull them all; and finally, the creation of roads with steel rails to put the trucks on.
Re: Convoy raises $62M from Bill Gates and other luminaries to transform trucking
#26I was under the impression YC Continuity existed for the sake of investing in later stage YC companies. Convoy is not YC company. Is YC Continuity just a generic fund now?
Y Combinator raising $1 billion for new fund https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14820629
Good to know. I did not see that news.
Re: Convoy raises $62M from Bill Gates and other luminaries to transform trucking
#27"We don’t think there are any other companies that have taken the same approach"
I distinctly remember a service/app with the same purpose in Europe in 2013.
There's Cargomatic and mentioned by mkoryak, OpenMile. And probably others. Money will definitely help here, though.
Re: Convoy raises $62M from Bill Gates and other luminaries to transform trucking
#28This type of system already exists. Their are plenty of exchanges where truckers or trucking companies can get matched with a load or pickup work. I don't understand what makes this so transforming?
Deep pockets.
Re: Convoy raises $62M from Bill Gates and other luminaries to transform trucking
#29Yes, similar systems do exist. My team made one of them:
In some ways, it's more challenging than building "an Uber", once you get into different cargo and body types, document management, insurance, etc. We launched in Russia first, and not being able to do electronic signatures added a set of challenges.
In any event, glad these investments are happening. Trucking is badly broken, especially in the US.
Re: Convoy raises $62M from Bill Gates and other luminaries to transform trucking
#30Next up, they will hit up on the idea of dedicated roads for truck convoys; also, a single engine to pull them all; and finally, the creation of roads with steel rails to put the trucks on.
I don't know why you think they want trains, but they're likely to move to self-driving trucks, just like Uber.