DC Velocity - March 2016

on that lane by dynamically, instantly changing the price,” Grasis said.

A transportation-industry outsider, Grasis founded ShipX in 2014 after the telecommunications company Sprint acquired his previous startup, a news, weather, and sports app developer for mobile phones called Handmark. Surprised to learn that shippers and trucking companies still relied on phone calls to book LTL shipments, he saw a chance to streamline those transactions by applying the familiar technology used on consumer websites such as Travelocity and Amazon.com.

ShipX generates its data on shipping rates through partnerships with technology firms such as Project44, a software vendor that builds application programming interfaces (APIs) that allow transportation management system (TMS) platforms to significantly boost the speed of data exchanges among shippers, LTL carriers, and 3PLs.

By relying on Project44 to generate near-instant rate quotes, ShipX can compile real-time information with more speed and accuracy than if it had applied blanket pricing from LTL pricing specialist SMC3 or collected quotes from each carrier one by one, Grasis said.

“Small business customers are under-
served, or they’re paying high prices,” he
said. “Most small businesses don’t neces-
sarily have a dedicated shipping manager,
so they call Freightquote or a 3PL on the
phone and pay a high markup.”
In contrast, ShipX has negotiated 30- to
40-percent volume discounts with large
carriers and passes the savings along to its
users, charging a single $25 booking fee for
every load it handles, regardless of size.

“It doesn’t cost us any more to book a
load that’s 10,000 pounds than one that’s
300 pounds,” Grasis said. “We’re not rein-
venting the wheel here. Our customers are
very, very Web savvy, since they just did
their Christmas shopping online. This is not
rocket science at all.”
Despite their value and potential, online
freight exchanges will never completely dis-
place the need for 3PLs, Grasis said. The
website works best for simple, direct ship-
ments, he said.

—B.A.

NAA-1078 ISS: 1/16

Imagine the Possibilities

Another Sign You Need Apex | #TrueStory

WHEN YOUR
SCANNER SYSTEM
LOOKS A LOT LIKE
YOUR JUNK DRAWER

See us at MODEX, Booth #1559

Two-year-old logistics software firm ClearMetal Inc., which wants to apply predictive intelligence tools to container shipping firms such as CMA CGM and Maersk Line, has landed $3 million in seed financing from a group of investors featuring Eric Schmidt, the chairman of Google Inc. parent company Alphabet Inc.

The investment comes from three venture capital firms: New Enterprise Associates Inc. (NEA), SkyView Fund, and Innovation Endeavors, an investment firm funded solely by Alphabet’s Schmidt.

“It’s the age-old issue that continues to plague the shipping industry:
Carriers struggle to get the right asset to the right place at the right
time,” NEA partner Chetan Puttagunta said in a statement. “The indus-
try now has the needed IT and data infrastructure in place—opening
the doors for ClearMetal to apply an innovative data-driven approach
to address the global trade problem.”
The software platform allows ship lines to predict equipment, trade,
vessel, and shipper needs with unprecedented accuracy, ClearMetal
claims. Launched in 2014 by a group of Stanford University researchers,
San Francisco-based ClearMetal has no public client list but claims that
two of the top 10 carriers are already using the platform and