Channel 19: (www.channel19.io)

HQ: Fremont, CA

Co-Founders: Tony Singh, Duane Moore, Chris Pickett

The problem: What’s keeping our economy moving? Literally (and figuratively) trucking. Surprisingly, small trucking companies (owning 1 – 20 trucks) make up 97% of the trucking businesses in the U.S. To find freight, small truckers interact with many different channels (now digitized) to connect with brokers, transportation management systems (TMS), and load boards (online marketplaces where brokers post freight and carriers can find it). Unsurprisingly, there is no single tool to evaluate freight across channels. It comes down to manually checking a growing list of web and smartphone apps to find and book loads. Searching for hours per truck is time consuming, and highly inefficient for these small businesses.

Meet Channel 19: Launched by industry insiders, Channel 19 helps truck operators quickly search for and book the best freight loads across multiple channels, all in one place. By seamlessly syncing across all of the relationships that come from hauling freight, it not only aggregates all the sources into one platform, truckers can also find and quickly book the best available freight in one place. This consolidation results in higher revenue yields per carrier truck. 

Why we’re betting on it:  The US economy is built on freight trucking, and the market is enormous — $800 billion. Within that, small for-hire truck carriers represent 40% or $320 billion; and freight brokers represent $80 billion.

 Channel 19’s single platform is making operational efficiency easy in an industry that’s been highly distributed and overly manual.  By connecting trucking companies (carriers) and freight distributors (brokers) in one place, and allowing each side to sort and optimize for their priorities, Channel19 is a win-win on all fronts. Aggregating and streamlining the process of searching for and booking the best loads will enable truckers to earn up to 25% in higher profit.

Achieving this vision needs deep subject matter expertise, and Channel 19’s co-founders Tony Singh and Duane Moore are up to task. Tony grew up in the industry – first in India, and then building fleet operations and repair experiences from scratch in the US. While working in IT for enterprise resource planning systems in transportation, he began to see that truck operators (particularly the small ones) faced a number of challenging problems. So together with Duane Moore, an experienced and savvy product engineer and Clover alum, they built a tool to enable small truckers to make a direct impact on their bottom line.

Our take: Digital freight will continue to dominate the trucking industry and we believe there’s an opening for a market leader that Channel 19 is well-positioned to fill. While focusing on the customers who are actually out on the roads, Channel19 is creating a much desired (and necessary) single platform transforming workflows in a slow-to-digitize industry.

Their comprehensive (yet actionable) data optimizes operations and profitability, matching the right truck with the right freight. We believe this should enable small trucking businesses, the backbone of the transportation economy, to survive and thrive.