Flexport

Last updated
Flexport Inc.
Company type Private
Industry
Founded2013;11 years ago (2013)
Founders
  • Ryan Petersen
  • David Petersen
Headquarters
San Francisco, California [1]
,
United States
Key people
Ryan Petersen
(Chairman and CEO)
RevenueIncrease2.svg US$3.3 billion (2021) [2]
Number of employees
3,200 (2022) [3]
Website flexport.com

Flexport Inc. is an American multinational corporation that focuses on supply chain management and logistics, including order management, delivery, trade financing, insurance, freight forwarding, and customs brokerage. The company is headquartered in San Francisco, California, [4] has thousands of employees and annual revenues of more than $3.3 billion. [1]

Contents

Corporate history

Flexport's software integrates and connects ERP data from various companies involved in a supply chain, which allows them to manage information about cargo and streamline freight processing. [5] As of 2017, it had raised $304M, including $110M in a Series C round. [6]

In May 2015, the company told Chinese media outlet 36kr.com that they were on pace to generate $60 million in sales for 2015. [7] It had more than 600 customers in 2016. As of 2017, Flexport has raised $94 million in venture capital from such investors as Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund, First Round Capital and Google Venture. [4] [8] In July 2016, it had 420 employees in seven offices, including Atlanta, Amsterdam, Hong Kong and Shenzhen, and was worth $365 million. [8] In a 2017 interview to Forbes , Flexport's CEO Ryan Petersen said the company started opening their own warehouses for consolidating cargo customer shipments located in Hong Kong and L.A. with plans "to have a global network where we can load and unload cargo". [9]

During the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, Flexport announced layoffs along with other Silicon Valley tech startups. [10] In 2021, Flexport participated in seed round investment of Pakistan-based trucking startup Bridgelinx. [11] In 2022, Flexport "raised $935 million in a Series E funding round that values the freight forwarding company at $8 billion". It has raised $2.3 billion since its inception. [12] In June 2022, Flexport announced that Amazon worldwide consumer chief Dave Clark would be joining Flexport as its new CEO. [13] Clark resigned in September 2023 after one year in the role to founder and then executive chair Ryan Petersen. [14] In May 2023, Shopify sold its logistics service to Flexport in exchange for 13% of the company. [15] In September 2023, Ryan Petersen regained the CEO position after the departure of Dave Clark. [16] Upon his return, he immediately rescinded dozens of offers from successful applicants starting as soon as three days later. [17] In November 2023, Flexport purchased the assets of Convoy (company), a former trucking software company previous valuated at over $1 billion that had shuttered operations several weeks before. [18] On January 19th, 2024, it was announced that the company had taken on an investment of $260 million from Shopify. [19]

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References

  1. 1 2 "Ryan Petersen's Flexport Aims To Simplify Global Freight Transport Business". Forbes . Retrieved 2019-03-18.
  2. ↑ "Flexport is Silicon Valley's Solution to the Supply Chain Mess—Why do Insiders Hope It Sinks?". Forbes .
  3. ↑ de León, Riley (2023-01-11). "Flexport to lay off 20% of its global workforce". CNBC .
  4. 1 2 Rogers, Bruce. "Ryan Petersen's Flexport Aims To Simplify Global Freight Transport Business". Forbes. Retrieved 2019-03-19.
  5. ↑ "FreightTech 25: Flexport demystifies trade with more visibility tools". FreightWaves. 2020-12-23. Retrieved 2021-01-03.
  6. ↑ "Freight Startup Flexport Raises $110 Million And Turns Down A $1 Billion Valuation". Flexport. October 26, 2017. Retrieved January 3, 2018.
  7. ↑ "货运业的Uber来了，Flexport开启大宗物流透明化的2.0时代_36氪". 36氪. 12 May 2015. Retrieved 22 February 2016.
  8. 1 2 Adams, Susan. "Flexport Wants To Do For Freight Shipping What FedEx Does For Small Packages". Forbes. Retrieved 2019-03-19.
  9. ↑ Adams, Susan. "Flexport Wants To Do For Freight Shipping What FedEx Does For Small Packages". Forbes. Retrieved March 19, 2019.
  10. ↑ Griffith, Erin (2020-02-24). "As the Start-Up Boom Deflates, Tech Is Humbled (Published 2020)". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved 2021-03-12.
  11. ↑ "Digital freight marketplace BridgeLinx raises $10 million in Pakistan's largest seed funding". TechCrunch. Retrieved 26 November 2021.
  12. ↑ León, Riley de (2022-02-07). "Freight forwarding firm Flexport raises nearly $1 billion in funding, adds Shopify, Michael Dell as investors". CNBC. Retrieved 2022-02-09.
  13. ↑ Palmer, Annie (2022-06-08). "Amazon consumer chief Dave Clark to join Flexport as its new CEO". CNBC. Retrieved 2022-06-10.
  14. ↑ Goswami, Annie Palmer,Rohan (2023-09-06). "Flexport CEO Dave Clark resigns from logistics startup after one year in the role". CNBC. Retrieved 2023-09-06.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  15. ↑ "Shopify sells shipping service firm Deliverr, other assets amid narrowing ambitions". The Economic Times. 2023-05-04. ISSN   0013-0389 . Retrieved 2023-05-04.
  16. ↑ Young, Liz; Mattioli, Dana (6 September 2023). "WSJ News Exclusive | Dave Clark Resigns as Flexport CEO". Wall Street Journal.
  17. ↑ Morrow, Allison (2023-09-08). "Logistics startup rescinds dozens of job offers amid messy executive drama | CNN Business". CNN. Retrieved 2024-09-09.
  18. ↑ Bellan, Rebecca (2023-11-02). "Flexport acquires technology of former digital freight unicorn Convoy". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2024-02-27.
  19. ↑ Coates, Alex (2024-01-19). "Flexport raises $260M from Shopify". YahooFinance.
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