Flexport (YC W14) raises $65M Series B

Flexport (YC W14) raises $65M Series B(techcrunch.com)

99 points by Gasparila 9 years ago | 31 comments

Why does everyone keep saying international shipping isn't sexy? It has a profound global impact and you can see it happening massively everyday with the work of thousands of people as giant ships come into the port and load/unload. I know the heart wants what the heart wants, but it should be considered at least as sexy as hosted version control, mobile marketing analytics, 'big data', automated taxi dispatch, or any other hot areas.

iamabraham 9 years ago | |

Of course it is a profound problem in a massive market with tons of financial and world-changing potential. So are things like commercial fire systems, utility-line inspection, and senior care. My snarky barb about the unsexiness of it comes from what feels like excess coverage of gaming, "shared" economy services, and on-demand services. These things are certainly important in their own right, but offering a different way to deliver me a Jimmy John's sandwich is far less meaningful on most every level than, say, reducing the radiation and waste created everytime more concrete is poured.

I hope Flexport is super successful. My jab was not at them at all.

egillie 9 years ago | |

Right?? Did they even look at our "About Us" or "Careers" page?

-person on the 'careers' page

sleazebreeze 9 years ago |

As a former developer at one of the mentioned "large competitors", it became clear to me that the logistics and shipping field is wide open for startups like Flexport. DHL and Expeditors are still thinking it's the 80s and they don't know any other way of conducting business.

Congrats on the raise, I can't wait to see what you guys do in the future!

inuhj 9 years ago | |

My experience with flexport has been nothing short of awful. Poor sourcing, unqualified staff, and high prices. Compared to established enterprises that are experienced shipping perishable goods reliably they are not a serious competitor. Flexport couldn't even tell me the dimensions of the crates, number of crates, or weight of the crates they were supposed to deliver. Innovation is not a pretty UI in the freight industry.

anon83727123444 9 years ago | | |

Same, I stopped my interview process early and kept my job in industry. They have a few OK senior guys, sort of, but the rest are just startup monkeys learning as they go. Most companies don't like that when they see it given, you know, you're trusting them with your supply chain. Awesome idea though.

egillie 9 years ago | | |

Aw jeez, sorry to hear about that... I'm really hoping this wasn't recently. Our service has changed drastically over just the last year, in product, expertise and especially pricing now that we're big enough for partners to take seriously. We've definitely gotten way better at shipping reefers -- if you'd like to give us another shot or have any questions feel free to ping me at evie@flexport.com and I'll get you set up!

lazaroclapp 9 years ago | |

Are DHL and Expeditors the main competitors for this going forward, or is it more likely competition will come from companies within the nations with a significant physical export volume and growing IIoT industries (read: China right now, maybe India or Indonesia in the future)?

sleazebreeze 9 years ago | | |

It's hard to say - but generally the companies that do well in logistics are the ones with the relationships with the downstream consumer of goods being shipped from China/India/SE Asia. You get the customer (Walmart, Apple, Nike, etc) and you get the shipping business from all their suppliers.

thedogeye 9 years ago |

Now we just have to pretend we didn't so we don't waste it all...

HorizonXP 9 years ago | |

Just picture @pb asking you what your burn rate is, and that should help.

Congrats on the raise! Any specific plans between now and series C?

paul 9 years ago | | |

That would be a good motivational poster :)

numlocked 9 years ago |

Am I reading this right that they did $500k of revenue in August?

'The round came together over the summer, but “we’ve grown revenue 80% in two months,” and racked up $500,000 in August, Petersen says'

What does that mean, 'racked up'? Surely they are not 'very profitable' and also worth $300m on a $6m revenue run rate...right?

Also -- seems like a great company and power to them. Just confused by that line in the article.

a-no-n 9 years ago |

This is great to see as having likely validation. In 2009, I met some Russian guys whom moved to Long Beach specifically to do fractional freight-forwarding matching/auctioning startup to replace the crazy amount of manual paperwork and inefficient legwork involved in that industry at the time. I think they might've been much too early, and timing is one of the more important success factors.

throwawaylalala 9 years ago |

Flexport customer here; compared to working with other freight forwarders abd customs brokers the experience is night and day a better and simpler experience.

asah 9 years ago | |

Same here, changed the game for us.

ryanmccullagh 9 years ago |

Hey FlexPort, are you hiring :) I would love to be considered for a software engineer position!

supster 9 years ago | |

https://www.flexport.com/careers#join

pdq 9 years ago | |

When companies raise money, the first objective is to hire more employees. So I can certainly say, yes they are.

tcas 9 years ago |

Hopefully this will allow them to take on smaller clients -- we've wanted to start to move some of our shipments from air to sea, but unless you're shipping multiple containers a year they don't have capacity for new clients right now.

There doesn't seem to be a great solution for trying to save money when you're shipping only a few thousands KG a year.

throwawaylalala 9 years ago | |

Keep asking, and get bigger:)

iamabraham 9 years ago |

I think it's curious that there are four comments in two hours because this industry - like many ready for big change - are unsexy.

aluminussoma 9 years ago | |

I think they're a very fascinating company! I just don't know what else to comment. I hope they do well.

40acres 9 years ago | |

What other industries do you have in mind? It almost feels like every industry has been impacted by a startup in the past few years.

asimuvPR 9 years ago | |

Dunno why people think its unsexy. Shipping is a really complex problem. Its much sexier than selling ads. ;-)

ttam 9 years ago |

Met Ryan in 2013 at Startup School.. could already feel he was going to hit it big when he was telling me what Flexport was doing!

msoad 9 years ago |

I don't know much about Flexport but it feels like a scammy company to me. I listened to the their interview at start up schools radio, I didn't like their attitude.

There is also lots of fake comments praising the company in this thread. Very weird to do this at this stage of company.

akanet 9 years ago | |

While you are certainly entitled to your opinion, I think a better comment would have involved research and a more concrete position on why you think they feel "scammy" to you. Clearly they have large customers that pay them for a very specific, tangible service (shipping), so I'm not sure where the scam angle is.

Calling a company scammy because you don't like their "attitude" might be jumping the gun.

bisRepetita 9 years ago |

Every time Flexport is hiring on HN, it goes front page. I always wondered why...

Are they gaming the system? Has PG a way to pump them up since he is an investor? Or is shipping sexy to the HN crowd?

FabioFleitas 9 years ago | |

YC companies can post on the jobs board (https://news.ycombinator.com/jobs). Job postings automatically go to the frontpage and don't have any upvote system

onion2k 9 years ago | |

Or is shipping sexy to the HN crowd?

Any suitably complex problem space can be 'sexy' if you consider it in abstract terms. It doesn't matter if you're solving how to move crates on ships, or move people in cars, or move streams of data in networks - it can all be a lot of fun irrespective of the end result. The main differences are the constraints on the problems, not the problems themselves.