DAT Freight & Analytics is set to acquire the Convoy Platform from Flexport, enhancing its digital freight-matching capabilities. The Convoy Platform automates freight transactions and complements DAT's load board, DAT One. Jeff Clementz, DAT CEO, highlights the acquisition's role in expanding network value and customer options. Ryan Petersen, Flexport CEO, notes the platform's improved value and market fit over 18 months.

The Seattle waterfront and Port of Seattle properties, with a container ship and West Seattle in the background. (GeekWire Photo / Taylor Soper)Buoyed by longtime logistics giants such as Amazon and the rapid rise of trucking startup Convoy, the Seattle region has emerged as a major epicenter for supply chain software innovation.There are at least 15 startups in the Seattle area (listed below) that develop logistics software to help companies move and manage physical goods.The supply chain talent pool in Seattle has a unique blend of “technical skill and customer focus required to win in today’s economy,” said Jason Murray, a former Amazon vice president and co-founder of Seattle-based shipping logistics startup Shipium.That talent can be traced back to global corporations in Seattle such as Starbucks, Costco, Expeditors, and Amazon.The city has an abundance of “supply chain awareness,” said Dan Lewis, co-founder and former CEO of Convoy, a one-time darling of Seattle’s startup scene that raised investment from the likes of Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates. The digital trucking marketplace was valued at more than $3 billion before shutting down in 2023 and selling its assets to Flexport, which re-launched the platform this year and has a Seattle-area satellite office.The supply chain crisis during the pandemic, along with advances in mobile, AI, and other software-related technologies, has driven interest and funding to logistics startups, Lewis said. Lewis and his co-founder Grant Goodale cut their teeth at Amazon before launching Convoy in 2015.Other Amazon leaders have taken the startup leap into logistics in Seattle, including Dave Clark, the former Amazon Worldwide Consumer CEO who just raised $100 million for Auger, a supply chain tech startup.An Amazon electric van in Seattle. (GeekWire Photo / Kurt Schlosser)Clark, who was recently based in Dallas, returned to the Seattle area to launch Auger.“I think some of the best talent in the world for this particular problem space lives in Seattle,” he told GeekWire in October.Bryan Lacaillade is another former Amazonian now leading a Seattle-area logistics startup, launching Freightmate earlier this year.“Seattle’s logistics tech ecosystem is truly world-class and was the primary reason we chose to launch Freightmate here,” said Lacaillade, who previously worked at Flexport.Mo Afshar, CEO of Pipe17, a Seattle e-commerce operations startup, said the physical proximity to Amazon gives his company an advantage.“Amazon has defined a lot of what logistics means in the modern world, so being in the same city really makes a difference,” he said. Seattle has built a reputation around the country as a hub for logistics tech talent

Even at Convoy, there were incidents of freight theft over some of its shipper's freight and despite being pretty far removed from the incidents at the time, I could feel its impacts in my org.