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Our Investment in CloudTrucks: Bringing Critical Solutions to Truckers Powering the Supply Chain

November 30, 2021
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Trucking is the backbone of America. And despite its critical hand in the supply chain, the $700 billion industry hinges on personnel, yet fails to offer drivers streamlined solutions for managing their operations. As a result, the nearly 3.6 million truck drivers across the U.S. are subject to inefficient back office logistics, difficulty optimizing their schedules for better pay rates, trouble maximizing their revenue, and many other headaches. 

The freight and fleet industries must innovate or risk losing the very drivers that make trucking—and consumer supply and demand—operational and successful. Enter CloudTrucks: the industry’s first and leading business-in-a-box solution solving unique challenges for drivers.

CloudTrucks delivers a single app helping truck owner operators source and instantly book loads, get paid faster, and streamline administrative operations. To put it simply, CloudTrucks empowers small trucking businesses and entrepreneurs to make the most of every trip. The case for a solution like CloudTrucks is obvious; the company has seen 8x growth on the number of loads completed on its platform in a single year. 

CloudTrucks leverages technology to build vertical fintech solutions with bank accounts and credit cards through their unique data assets and transaction flows. But the platform is much more than a carrier app with fintech solutions. The company plans to become the next Shopify or Square for owner operators, and we believe they are on that path.

CloudTrucks is well-positioned due in part to its strong leadership. Co-founder and CEO Tobenna Arodiogbu grew up building things from a young age, but also comes from a trucking background working with companies in the sector at his previous startup, Scotty Labs. Tobenna was curious about the idea of a solution focused on owner operators, but shifted his focus to building different technologies before Scotty Labs was acquired by DoorDash. Together with former Director of Engineering at Zenefits Jin Shieh and former Product Engineer at Intercom George Ezenna, Tobenna went on to build CloudTrucks.

Tobenna Arodiogbu, CEO, CloudTrucks

We’re thrilled to back Tobenna and the entire CloudTrucks team by co-leading their Series B alongside Tiger Global. With the funding, CloudTrucks plans to amplify its existing capabilities, expand its technology to meet the needs of more drivers, grow its existing team, and broaden its digital integration with brokers and shippers. 

CloudTrucks pairs nicely with our other supply chain and logistics investments, which we believe are more critical than ever. Check out this post from Steve unpacking why he’s particularly bullish on companies disrupting the supply chain. Notably, CloudTrucks joins Enable, Scout, Alloy, ShipBob, and 6 River Systems. They are also expanding their team, with various open roles here

We are actively investing in supply chain tech. If you are leading an effort to transform the supply chain with cutting-edge technology, we’d love to hear from you.

Steve is a partner at Menlo focused on investments in Menlo’s Inflection Fund, which targets fast-growing Series B/C companies. He specializes in AI-powered vertical SaaS investments and supply chain technology, including Enable, Eleos, Observe.AI, Scout, 6 River Systems, ShipBob, CloudTrucks, and Parade. Steve joined the firm in 2015 as an…

As a principal at Menlo Ventures, Feyza focuses on soon-to-breakout consumer, fintech, and enterprise SaaS companies. Prior to Menlo, Feyza worked as an engineer at various companies in different growth stages, including Nucleus Scientific (now Indigotech), Fitbit, and Analog Devices. Her exposure to a wide range of tasks and opportunities…