Empowering small trucking companies
Given the traditional structure of the shipping industry, FleetOps CEO Chris Atkinson saw an opportunity to empower small trucking companies with fleets of five trucks or less. Smaller outfits rely on brokers to book their shipments because they lack the industry resources to book with big shippers like Pepsi or Nestle. This means they pay an average of 20 per cent per shipment to third parties.
Based in Toronto, FleetOps is levelling the playing field with a software platform that provides connections for truck drivers looking for a load when their trailers are empty on a return trip. Using artificial intelligence and machine learning, the software helps drivers manage complexity by doing the logistics for them.
FleetOps, which also provides access to major shippers, enables companies to make time-saving decisions to improve efficiency, increase revenue and decrease costs, putting that 20 per cent back into the pockets of small and nimble trucking companies.
As word about FleetOps’s unique offering spread, with 75 per cent of leads coming from peer-to-peer sharing via owner/operators, the company needed capital to meet growing customer demand. With a massive opportunity and technology that gave them a competitive edge in the marketplace, FleetOps wanted to capture market share quickly. That’s when the company applied to OCE’s SmartStart and Market Readiness Customer Creation (MRCC) and Company Building (MRCB) programs.
The MRCC funding was put toward expanding the FleetOps team by bringing in salespeople and marketing experts all focused on driving growth and sales and acquiring as many new customers as possible.
“We are talking about an upward 300 per cent ROI on that investment for sure,” says Atkinson. “If you wanted to equate what the funds did to the company growth, those would be the numbers.”
FleetOps expects to continue its dynamic growth and be part of over 200,000 shipments across North America. With the company now double the size and having recently raised $1.5 million in follow-on investment, FleetOps is expanding their artificial intelligence and working to embed the technology into autonomous vehicles and other additional solutions for drivers.
