FourKites is a Chicago-based enterprise software company that tracks roughly 3.2 million shipments a day across road, rail, ocean, air and last mile. Founded in 2014 by Matt Elenjickal, it pioneered applying SaaS to GPS and ELD telematics to give the world's largest shippers real-time visibility into where their freight actually is. Today the company is reinventing itself around AI: an Intelligent Control Tower and a 'Digital Workforce' of named AI agents that don't just show what is happening in a supply chain but decide and act on it.
Pallet is a San Francisco startup building an AI workforce for the $12 trillion logistics industry. Its flagship product, CoPallet, automates the manual, paper-and-spreadsheet back-office work that runs global freight - order entry, quoting, dispatch, and portal updates. Founded by ex-Retool engineers Sushanth Raman and Andrew Spencer, both with family roots in shipping, Pallet has raised $50M from General Catalyst, Bain Capital Ventures, Bessemer, and Activant, with customers cutting repetitive staffing costs 50-70% and boosting throughput up to tenfold.
On an episode of TPM Today, host Eric Johnson, senior technology editor at the Journal of Commerce, interviews Sushant Ramen, founder and CEO of Pallet, about why the overwhelming majority of AI agent projects fail in logistics. Ramen argues the culprit is 'context scattering' — AI vendors who don't understand the thousands of undocumented 'tribal rules' inside freight forwarding and 3PL operations. Pallet's approach captures that organizational memory, then automates document-heavy workflows like commercial invoices, packing lists, ISFs, and container track-and-trace. The conversation covers the MIT study finding 95% of enterprise AI initiatives fail, how shippers and 3PLs use agents differently, the 'AWSification' of logistics labor, and how to vet AI vendors with blunt domain questions and forced tests.
On TPM Today, host Eric Johnson, senior technology editor at the Journal of Commerce, sits down with Sushanth Raman, Co-Founder and CEO of Pallet, to unpack why roughly 95% of enterprise AI agent initiatives fail and how Pallet aims to be the exception. Raman argues that the missing ingredient is 'tribal knowledge' — the thousands of undocumented business rules buried inside every freight forwarder, 3PL and shipper operation. Pallet captures that context, chunks it into 'organizational memories,' and only then automates document-heavy workflows like commercial invoices, packing lists, ISFs, bills of lading and container track-and-trace, claiming 97-98% accuracy and real EBITDA improvement for customers.
Shipwell is an Austin-based software company building an AI-integrated transportation management system (TMS) that unifies shipment planning, real-time visibility, automation, and settlement in one cloud platform. Founded in 2016 by Greg Price and Jason Traff, it helps shippers and logistics teams across food & beverage, manufacturing, and distribution move freight with less manual work. After selling its brokerage arm to CloudTrucks in 2024, Shipwell now operates as a pure-play SaaS provider and has been named a Visionary in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for TMS for five consecutive years.
SmartHop is a Miami-based trucking technology company that gives small fleets and owner-operators a business-in-a-box platform. It pairs AI-driven load recommendations and full-service dispatch with fintech tools - fuel cards, payments, and insurance - so independent truckers can compete with large carriers without drowning in paperwork.
TrueNorth is a San Francisco software company building the operating system for trucking. Its AI dispatcher, Loadie, pulls freight from across the market and books loads for independent carriers and brokers - matching trucks to the most profitable freight, automating paperwork, and handling outreach. Backed by Sam Altman and Lachy Groom, the company wants to give solo truckers the economics and tooling of a large fleet.
Paul Singer is the cofounder and CEO of FleetWorks, a San Francisco startup building always-on voice AI agents that handle the phone-and-email grind of freight brokerage. A former Uber Freight product manager and Yale economics grad, he started FleetWorks in late 2022 with cofounder Quang Tran, went through Y Combinator's Summer 2023 batch, and in October 2025 raised a $17M round (including a $15M Series A led by First Round Capital) to automate the matching of trucks with cargo across a $1T+ industry.
Richard Gerstein is the Chairman and CEO of Cargomatic, the marketplace that matches local and regional freight with the trucks already driving past it. He grew up on the docks of his father's less-than-truckload business in Chicago, founded the multi-modal logistics software company IntelliTrans, and since 2017 has rebuilt Cargomatic into a leading provider of local LTL, drayage, and white glove freight services. He pairs a UC Berkeley transportation engineering background with a lifetime spent around loading docks.
Altana builds the AI-powered network for trusted global trade - a dynamic, intelligent map of the world's supply chains. Using federated machine learning, it connects businesses, the largest logistics providers, and government agencies around a shared, privacy-preserving source of product and supplier intelligence, helping them manage compliance, tariffs, risk, and resilience across multi-tier supply networks.
Hauler Hero is a New York-based software company building a cloud and AI-powered operating system for waste and recycling haulers. Its all-in-one platform unifies CRM, dispatching, routing, billing, reporting, and a driver mobile app, replacing the decades-old tools that most trash and recycling companies still run on. Founded in 2020, the company processes millions of pickups a month and is now layering AI agents - Hero Vision, Hero Chat, and Hero Routing - on top of its core platform.
Tutor Intelligence builds AI-powered collaborative robots that pick, pack, and palletize alongside people on factory and warehouse floors. Born out of MIT's CSAIL, the company sells robots by the hour - a Robots-as-a-Service model that drops a working robot onto a line in days, not months, with no programming required. Its flagship Cassie handles infinite SKUs at up to 14 cases per minute, while Data Factory 1, a 100-robot facility in a renovated Watertown mill, trains the next generation of factory-ready robot AI on real-world data.
Tom Dean is the co-founder, President and CEO of Renaissant, a Milwaukee-based logistics technology company building a voice-enabled, agentic AI operating system for warehouse yards and loading docks. A former Ernst & Young auditor turned hedge fund trader and investment manager, Dean pivoted Renaissant from a building-security platform into freight tech, raised a $5 million Series A in 2024, and now runs software across roughly 130 sites that talks to truck drivers in their own language to speed check-ins, deter cargo theft, and cut idle time.
Evangelos (Evan) Efstathiou is the CEO of Burmester & Vogel, a Boston-based maritime software company that turns the slow, paper-heavy work of laytime and demurrage calculation into AI-driven automation. An MIT-trained entrepreneur who has spent his whole career at the crossroads of shipping, software and capital markets, he bought the 40-year-old freight-tech firm in 2019 through a Series A and is rebuilding it into what he calls 'the Bloomberg of shipping.' He also runs the maritime M&A and strategy advisory Skysail Advisors, which he founded in 2016.
Leonardo Bonanni is the founder and CEO of Sourcemap, the supply chain mapping company he spun out of his PhD research at the MIT Media Lab. What began in 2008 as a 'Wikipedia for supply chains' became enterprise software that helps the world's largest brands in food, apparel, electronics, pharmaceuticals and automotive trace their products down to raw-material origins - tanneries, farms, mines and slaughterhouses. He testified before the US Senate and the French Senate on traceability, spoke at TEDxMilano, and has been named among the most influential people in business ethics.
Matthew Haber is the co-founder and CEO of Cofactr, a New York-based platform that automates procurement and logistics for electronics hardware teams in aerospace, defense, medtech and robotics. A theater-designer-turned-engineer, he built tours for Coachella acts and escape rooms before co-founding an experiential R&D firm (BeSide) that sold to agency MAS in 2018. He launched Cofactr in the Y Combinator W22 batch; in December 2024 the company raised a $17.2M Series A led by Bain Capital Ventures, bringing total funding to roughly $28.8M.
Motive (formerly KeepTruckin) is a San Francisco-based technology company building an AI-powered platform for the physical economy. It helps companies that run trucks, equipment, and field workers manage safety, operations, compliance, and spend in one system - combining edge-AI dashcams, GPS telematics, and fintech tools used by nearly 100,000 businesses from small fleets to Fortune 500 enterprises like Halliburton, Komatsu, and Maersk.
Uber is a global technology platform that connects riders, drivers, eaters, couriers, and shippers through a single app. What began in 2009 as a way to summon a black car in San Francisco has grown into a multi-sided marketplace spanning ride-hailing, food and grocery delivery (Uber Eats), and freight logistics (Uber Freight). It operates in roughly 70 countries and 10,000+ cities, serving more than 200 million monthly active users and completing over 13 billion trips a year.
Zūm is a Redwood City, California company that has reinvented the most analog corner of education: the yellow school bus. It pairs an AI-driven routing and fleet-management platform with apps for parents, drivers and districts, then layers on a fast-growing fleet of electric buses with vehicle-to-grid charging that can sell power back to the grid. Serving roughly 4,500 schools and districts nationwide, Zūm turned a clipboard-and-radio industry into a connected, electrified mobility network.
Alain Samaha is President & CEO of Teletrac Navman and President of Alternative Energy & Sustainable Fleets at Vontier, bringing over 20 years of technology leadership to the intersection of IoT, AI, and fleet management. A Stanford-trained aeronautical engineer turned enterprise software executive, he previously held senior roles at Trimble including President of the Utilities and Public Administration group. At Teletrac Navman - a global telematics SaaS leader with ~850 employees and $245M in annual revenue - Samaha is steering the company's push into AI-powered fleet safety, multi-energy transition, and a 'single pane of glass' platform vision for fleet operators worldwide.
Albert Ko is the CEO of Auctane, the Austin-based shipping software powerhouse behind ShipStation, Stamps.com, ShipEngine, and Metapack. A Korean immigrant who arrived in Los Angeles speaking Korean and Farsi but no English, Ko climbed from McKinsey consultant to Yale/Harvard-educated operator who grew Zelle into the largest peer-to-peer payments network by dollar volume — then took the helm at Auctane in June 2023 to bring operational discipline to one of the most consequential companies in global e-commerce logistics.
Bob McCollum is the long-serving CEO and driving force behind R.S. Hughes Co., Inc., an employee-owned industrial distributor headquartered in Sunnyvale, California that has grown into a $527 million enterprise spanning North America. A University of Michigan alumnus and former college quarterback, McCollum spent decades building RS Hughes into one of North America's top 50 industrial distributors, known for its culture of integrity and genuine care for employees. He has been recognized for significant philanthropic contributions to the University of Michigan athletics program, endowing the quarterbacks coaching position with a $2 million gift in 2022.
Dara Khosrowshahi is the CEO of Uber, the global ride-hailing and delivery platform he has led since September 2017. An Iranian-American who fled Tehran as a child during the Revolution, he spent 12 years building Expedia into a travel giant before inheriting Uber at its most turbulent moment. Under his leadership, Uber went public in 2019, achieved sustained profitability, and expanded into a multi-service platform operating across 70+ countries with $193+ billion in annual gross bookings. A self-described gamer, sci-fi geek, and cycling enthusiast who once wore a Slayer T-shirt to his wedding, Khosrowshahi has rebuilt Uber's culture around a simple principle: 'We do the right thing. Period.'
Shoaib Makani is the co-founder and CEO of Motive (formerly KeepTruckin), an AI platform for the physical economy used by more than 120,000 fleets across trucking, construction, agriculture and field services. He left Khosla Ventures in 2013 to build software for an industry most of Silicon Valley ignored, and turned a paper-logbook replacement into a multi-billion-dollar company.
Augment builds Augie, an AI teammate purpose-built for logistics. The San Francisco company automates the phone calls, emails, portal logins, and back-office workflows that bog down freight brokers, shippers, and carriers - and has raised $110M in under a year to scale it.
Aumet is a Saudi-headquartered healthtech building an AI-first procurement operating system for pharmacies, hospitals and pharmaceutical suppliers across the Middle East. The platform connects more than 12,000 pharmacies with 1,000+ suppliers and processes roughly $1B in annual gross merchandise value.
CloudTrucks is a San Francisco-based virtual trucking carrier that gives owner-operators and small fleets the software, payments, insurance, and load-booking tools to run their businesses like a modern enterprise without the back-office headaches.
Lob is a San Francisco-based SaaS company that turns direct mail into programmable infrastructure. Through APIs and an automation platform, marketers and developers send personalized postcards, letters, checks, and self-mailers at scale, with built-in address verification and a nationwide print delivery network.
LocoNav is a full-stack fleet management platform out of Gurgaon that combines GPS tracking, video telematics, IoT sensors and AI-driven driver safety into one dashboard. It serves more than 50 countries and operates across the emerging markets that legacy fleet software politely ignored.
Lyric is a Sunnyvale-based AI platform built for the people who actually run supply chains. Its Lyric Studio harmonizes data, algorithms, configurable workflows, and accelerated compute so that planners, engineers, and data scientists can model, test, and deploy decision intelligence apps - from demand forecasting and inventory to network design and transportation. Fortune 500 customers use it to compress months-long modeling cycles into days.