Our Investment in Supply Chain Digitization – Parade Secures $12.7 Million Funding to Accelerate Expansion

- Investment to speed digital adoption, expand capabilities, grow its team, and strengthen connectivity with its 3rd-party partner ecosystem

By Brent MacDonald – Partner at Rising Tide

Underneath the surface of the freight transportation industry is a fragmented and incredibly complex relationship between shippers, brokers, and carriers that ensures the transportation of goods. Approximately, 20% of the $800 billion in U.S. freight movement today is coordinated by freight brokerages, who total over 17,000 and play a crucial and underappreciated role in matching shippers with carriers and managing logistical details (source: Translogistics). In addition to this mixing, supply chain digitization is at a tipping point, as logistics service providers increasingly rely on more connected workflows to maximize efficiency and speed.

According to Trucks.com, trucks transported 11.49 billion tons of cargo, or 71.4% of all freight carried in the United States. Eighty-three percent of the country's freight bill came from the trucking industry. Six or fewer trucks are operated by roughly 91% of fleets. Over 97 of them drive 20 or fewer trucks.

Parade.ai empowers all freight brokers to go digital, with market-leading tools and technology to optimize workflows. Its team of executives comes from industry-leading companies like Convoy, P44, and Trucker Tools. Parade’s capacity management solution for brokers is an industry first. The Company’s AI-powered CRM or Customer Relationship Management platform improves carrier relationships, enables smart pricing, automates communication workflows, and allows full digital booking. Parade’s automation and streamlined processes help brokers get more done in a day, ultimately leading to more bookings and more time to focus on the things the computer cannot do: building relationships with carriers and bringing in new business.

Recently, the Company introduced Parade CoDriver. This new GPT-powered assistant streamlines freight brokerage operations, helping brokers manage carriers and book more loads efficiently. Parade CoDriver leverages OpenAI’s latest advancements in artificial intelligence to process emails and phone calls from carriers at a fourfold increase. Turning text and audio into actionable insights and opportunities, enables carrier sales representatives to focus on strategic decision-making, relationship-building, and effective management of carrier relationships. This ultimately enhances their productivity and value to the company, fostering stronger partnerships and driving business growth.

Customers continue to recognize and reward Parade for innovation and for providing best-in-class freight brokerage software as the industry shifts towards more real-time and collaborative ways of doing business. Parade customers today are automating upward of 30% of their bookings, which is transformative for brokerages running at modest margins.

Reimagine Freight Brokerage Operations

Parade announced that it has closed a $12.7 million series A led by investors within the freight-tech and supply chain communities. According to Parade co-founder and CEO Anthony Sutardja, the Company plans to use the funds to speed up tech enablement for freight brokers by expanding its current load-matching capabilities, growing its own sales and development teams, and continuing adding integrations with third parties to add more value to its customers.

Why we are excited: 

Parade is the leader in software for freight brokers, offering truckload capacity management that drives carrier access and digital transformation. Parade empowers top freight brokerages to cultivate best-in-class carrier relationships by leveraging artificial intelligence to give customers business-critical insights and smart carrier engagement. Brokers and 3PLs or Third Party Logistics Brokers grow profits by booking more loads, increasing operational efficiencies, and boosting productivity. The team at Parade will continue to help customers realize huge gains in these areas by re-utilizing carriers to find the right truck at the best price at the right time.

See the funding press release here.

Disclaimer: Rising Tide Fund Managers, LLC and its affiliates (“Rising Tide” or “We”) is a United States venture capital firm investing primarily in the information technology and healthcare/life sciences markets. Over the last 35 years, we have partnered with family funds, high-impact investors, and strategic partners to help launch and expand startups in a variety of industries across three continents. We are dedicated to cooperating with our entrepreneurs at all stages: from financing to leveraging our international networks to facilitating exits by design. The portfolio companies described herein do not represent all the portfolio companies purchased, sold, or recommended for portfolios advised by Rising Tide. The reader should not assume that an investment in the portfolio companies identified were or will be profitable. Past performance is not indicative of future results. Investors should be aware that a loss of investment is possible. For more information, visit www.rtf.vc