Flexport moves forward, in expanding the Convoy Platform

Earlier today, San Francisco-based freight forwarding and customs brokerage services provider Flexport announced it is taking steps to expand its Convoy Platform for freight brokers.

As previously reported by LM, roughly three months after it acquired the technology and intellectual property of Seattle-based digital freight network Convoy, following the closing of Convoy’s business, in October, due to the effects of the freight recession and a slowdown in capital market activity, Flexport said in February that it had formally introduced the rollout of the Convoy platform to its service portfolio.

Flexport officials explained that the Convoy Platform is comprised of an AI-powered marketplace aggregating a large, reliable pool of carrier owner-operators into a common platform with automated end-to-end load management, giving brokers access to a unique pool of capacity that is highly flexible, operates 24/7, and provides high tracking visibility. It added that brokers can use the platform to maximize the reach and effectiveness of their carrier operations teams, and automate manual tasks, including carrier negotiation, vetting, status updates, document management, and payment, lowering the carrier procurement and load management costs for loads on the platform by up to 90%, while expanding and diversifying load coverage across the country.

The company also added that the Convoy Platform also helps brokers monitor carrier risk and reduce fraud, theft, and unsafe behavior by leveraging machine learning models based on proprietary forensic data, which allows brokers to expand their network while minimizing risk. 

“The U.S. trucking market has undergone a massive transformation since the pandemic. Technology has empowered a new wave of small carriers who manage their business through their phone. We see a tremendous opportunity to connect that capacity to brokers, simplifying operations and lowering costs, while expanding opportunities for small carriers,” said Bill Driegert, Flexport EVP and Head of Trucking, in a statement. “With today’s launch, brokers using the Convoy Platform will be able to level up their operations and focus on strengthening core customer relationships and growing their businesses. At Flexport, we believe that technology plays a crucial role in empowering the entire trucking ecosystem; carriers, brokers, and shippers need new solutions to adapt and thrive in an ever-changing market.”

And the company noted that the formal rollout of the Convoy Platform represents what it called the next product milestone in Flexport’s trucking technology roadmap, leveraging the February 2024 launch of the Convoy Platform.

“The platform expansion is a major step forward to take inefficiency out of the trucking ecosystem, allowing brokers and carriers to focus on high-impact seamless operations while delivering quality performance for shippers,” said Flexport.

In a February interview with LM, Flexport’s Driegert said there were a couple of things during the diligence process that helped drive Flexport’s interest in acquiring Convoy’s technology.

One factor, he cited, was how much carriers liked using the Convoy platform, as well as the investment in pricing and getting the bid mechanics just right so that carriers would accept it and respond very quickly and building the related intelligence behind that, in the form of AI and ML models. Another benefit he me mentioned was tracking, in terms of coaching drivers through tracking, how to ensure high tracking resolution and compliance. What’s more, Driegert cited Convoy’s brokers-focused product which was launched in 2020, and received solid levels of investment, noting there is a lot of opportunity in that space to build out more of an ecosystem and bring these capabilities to more providers.

“Convoy had raised more than one billion dollars, and a significant chunk of that went towards building out its technology,” he said. “That included investment in data science, AI, and all the models and the feature set. We had started to build in this space. My mandate when I came on was to build similar capabilities here at Flexport, so this is a massive [push] in that direction. We are certainly getting more than our money’s worth, in terms of capabilities that came along with it.”

As for customer feedback, Driegert said it has been very positive, explaining on the carrier side, which is still a tough market in general, with more owner-operators and small carriers having become more app-centric in how they manage their business.