Supply Chain · Profile from Supply Chain Research Companion
Convoy
Convoy, the Seattle digital freight broker founded in 2015 by two former Amazon employees, Dan Lewis and Grant Goodale, which raised more than $1bn (PitchBook via Bloomberg, reported) from venture firms, public-market growth investors and well-known individuals including Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates (reported), was valued at a reported ~$3.8bn in April 2022, and stopped operating on 19 Oct 2023, eighteen months later, with no buyer for the business. Flexport announced on 1 Nov 2023 that it had bought Convoy's technology (not the company or its liabilities) for an undisclosed sum, relaunched it as the Convoy Platform in early 2024 and agreed to sell that platform to DAT Freight & Analytics in July 2025 (Flexport, 28 Jul 2025). Convoy's story turns on subsidised margins and venture capital mistaken for a business model: its software did automate brokerage, but a broker's largest cost is the carrier payment set by the spot market, its lane density never reached the point where batching and reloads changed that cost, and when the freight recession and the capital market turned together in 2022–23 it ran out of time. It is the shortest and most expensive failure in this knowledge base, and its counterpart case is Yellow, which failed the same year at the other end of trucking (case studies).
At a glance
- Founded
- 2015, Seattle, by Dan Lewis (CEO) and Grant Goodale (CTO), both former Amazon employees (reported)
- Headquarters
- Seattle, Washington; an Atlanta office closed in the 2022–23 layoffs (reported)
- Ownership / structure
- Private, venture-backed. Investors reported across rounds: Greylock and Y Combinator (early rounds, verify), CapitalG and Generation Investment Management (2019 lead investors, verify), Baillie Gifford and T. Rowe Price funds (Series E leads, Apr 2022), Park West (new in 2022), Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates (reported); Hercules Capital ($100m venture debt, 2022) and J.P. Morgan ($150m credit line, 2022) as lenders (Orrick, SiliconANGLE, reported)
- Leadership
- Dan Lewis (CEO 2015–23); Grant Goodale (CTO); no successor company
- Segment
- Freight broker / digital freight platform: US full-truckload (dry van, reefer), with drop trailers and carrier apps
- Scale
- Peak ~1,500 employees, ~500 at the October 2023 shutdown (Fortune, Seattle Times, reported); a carrier network Flexport later described as >400,000 truck drivers and 80,000 carriers (Flexport claim, Nov 2023); revenue never disclosed (gross brokerage revenue would have included carrier payments — verify any estimate)
- Financing
- >$1bn raised from investors (PitchBook via Bloomberg, reported; the B3 line's "~$1bn of equity" — whether this includes debt is unconfirmed); ~$400m Series D at ~$2.75bn (2019, reported); Apr 2022: $260m = $160m Series E preferred equity plus $100m Hercules venture debt, with a separate $150m J.P. Morgan credit line; post-money valuation reported at ~$3.8bn (MarketScreener and FinSMES summaries; not found in a primary filing — verify)
- End
- Cancelled shipments and cut most staff 18 Oct 2023; ceased operations 19 Oct 2023 (memo from Lewis); WARN Act class action filed within days (reported); technology and some key staff to Flexport (announced 1 Nov 2023, price undisclosed — ~$16m per one secondary source, verify)
- Signature moves (incl. failures)
- Founding (2015); automated reloads and shipment batching (2017, verify); Series D at ~$2.75bn (2019); Convoy Go drop-trailer pool (2020, verify); Series E and the reported ~$3.8bn valuation (2022); the freight recession and layoffs (2022–23, failure); shutdown (Oct 2023, failure); technology sold to Flexport (2023) and onward to DAT (2025)
8 strategic moves analysed
Each one gets a full strategy file in the companion: context, the decision, the financing, what happened, and the lesson.
2015
Founding Digital Freight Broker
Founding
2017
Automated Reloads and Shipment Batching
Technology or automation bet
2019
Series D at 2 75bn Valuation
Financing
2020
Convoy Go Drop Trailer Pool
Network build (trailer pool); pricing or service change
2022
Freight Recession and Layoffs
Restructuring — failure
2022
Series E and Reported 3 8bn Valuation
Financing
2023
Shutdown
Restructuring or bankruptcy — failure (operational shutdown without a conventional reorganisation)
2023
Technology Sold to Flexport
Divestment (asset sale after shutdown)