The Solopreneur Reaches Trucking 🚚

When Plato penned Republic in ancient Greece, his translated text gave us the saying, “necessity is the mother of invention.” He couldn’t have predicted how well-proven that statement would be in 2021. He was born just after The Great Athenian Plague and lived through the ensuing changes, much as we see the COVID pandemic’s reorganizing of our lives -- from the transformation of modern conveniences to meet stay-at-home orders to the Great Resignation to unrest around civil rights and the unfair distribution of wealth. One area under tremendous pressure is our supply chain. Backlogs and driver shortages are sending prices higher and increasing wait times. Necessity: check. Cue the invention.

CloudTrucks is seeking to change an industry that has long avoided profound technological advances by offering software for trucking entrepreneurs to build their businesses. The company sought to understand the factors around the trucking shortage and found that drivers were leaving the industry due to administrative challenges necessary for running their operations (think insurance and compliance).

The company was founded by two former Zenefits colleagues looking to solve broken industries with tech solutions. They’ve built a business-in-a-box solution for drivers, including a database of jobs, a payments system, and insurance options. The company seeks to improve upon existing offerings from legacy companies like Schneider and Landstar to gain market share in a $730BN industry. The company just raised a fresh round of funding, bringing its valuation to the unicorn-brink of $850MM.

For other Plato devotees in the trucking industry, check out TrueNorth and SmartHop.