Dray Alliance raises $10.2 million in funding round

Drayage startup Dray Alliance has raised $10.2 million in Series A funding led by Matrix Partners, the company said today. Ex-Uber syndicate Moving Capital also participated in the round, along with previous investors Craft Ventures, Act One Ventures, and Wonder Ventures. 

Dray Alliance is a digital drayage marketplace that connects shippers and truckers for short-range delivery of shipping containers between ports and logistics centers. The company will use the latest funding to increase automation in its products and to expand hiring in sales, engineering, and operations, company leaders said.

"The rise of e-commerce—accelerated by Amazon Prime—is forcing the logistics industry to a reckoning," Jake Jolis, a partner with Matrix Partners, said in a statement announcing the investment. "In an age of hyper-competition and ever-rising expectations on delivery time and reliability, every inch of the logistics supply chain matters. We have seen the rise of digitally enabled ocean freight forwarding and long-haul trucking, yet port logistics—a $50 billion market—has been stubbornly stuck. Drayage has remained the last bastion of extremely manual, paper-based, and inefficient processes in logistics. Dray is perfectly positioned to take advantage of this seismic opportunity."

Dray's technology solutions include a web application for shippers and a mobile app for drivers that automate and simplify drayage transactions. The company works with more than 50 enterprise customers, including containership liners Maersk, CMA-CGM, and APL, along with major importers, freight-forwarders, and third-party logistics providers (3PLs), according to the company.

Dray Alliance also announced the hiring of Sammi Liu as COO and Lauren Roberts as vice president of sales. Liu has worked in operations and logistics for Uber and was general manager of Los Angeles-based logistics service Shyp, and is now one of the first female COOs to lead the trucking industry, the company said. Roberts was previously with industrial Internet-of-Things (IoT) firm Samsara, and has also held senior sales positions at technology firms Indeni and Cisco.