# Convoy (2015 – 2023)

- URL: https://girisimcikafasi.com/en/startup-graveyard/convoy/
- Sector: Logistics and delivery
- Country: United States
- Total funding: $665 million
- Cause of closure: Macroeconomic crisis

## What did it do?

Convoy was a digital freight broker founded in Seattle in 2015 by former Amazon employees Dan Lewis and Grant Goodale. Its software matched shippers with carriers, and it operated as a brokerage working directly with shippers. Forbes billed it as the Uber of trucking.

## Why did it shut down?

The company reached a $2.75 billion valuation in 2019, but in the period that followed, the industry entered a severe downturn. According to a note CEO Dan Lewis sent to employees, a major freight recession and the contraction in capital markets were the main causes of the collapse. In June 2023 co-founder Grant Goodale left the company. On 19 October 2023 Convoy cancelled all shipments, ceased operations and laid off its remaining employees. In November 2023 Flexport bought the company's assets for $16 million.

## The story

On 18 October 2023 Convoy's load board was completely empty; the company had cancelled all shipments. The next day CEO Dan Lewis announced in a note to employees that operations had ceased. The Seattle start-up, backed by both Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos and once valued at $2.75 billion, passed into history within days.

Convoy was founded in 2015 by former Amazon employees Dan Lewis and Grant Goodale. The aim was to use software to match shippers with carriers in the fragmented US trucking market. In 2016 the company signed its biggest deal to date, with Unilever, and Forbes billed it as the Uber of trucking. In July 2017 it raised $62 million in a round led by Y Combinator's Continuity Fund; Bill Gates joined existing investors such as Greylock Partners, Marc Benioff and Bezos Expeditions, taking total investment to $80 million.

The money kept flowing. In 2018 the company raised $185 million in a round led by CapitalG and became a unicorn with a $1 billion valuation. In 2019 a $400 million round led by Generation Investment Management and T. Rowe Price lifted the valuation to $2.75 billion. By the end of 2019 the capital raised had reached $665 million.

Then the wind changed. In June 2023 Goodale, co-founder and chief technology officer, left the company. In his closure note, Lewis cited a major freight recession and the contraction in capital markets as the main causes of the collapse. In November 2023 Flexport bought Convoy's assets for $16 million and took on around fifty employees; Lewis also moved to Flexport. Flexport relaunched Convoy Platform in February 2024 as a software service for third-party brokers, and in July 2025 sold it to DAT Solutions for $250 million.

Convoy's story shows how quickly a fast-growing broker in a cyclical industry can run out of breath when the cycle turns. What stands out is that while the company itself went under, its software kept its value: the product survived, the business model did not.

## Lessons

- If you are a broker in a cyclical industry, build a cost structure that can survive even the worst year's volumes.
- Do not plan on the assumption that you will easily raise the next round; prepare in advance the cash to carry the company and an alternative way out for when capital markets close.
- If your technology is valuable, make it saleable as a product in its own right; Convoy's software found a buyer even after the company shut down.

## Sources

- [Convoy (company)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convoy_(company))
- [Bezos-backed freight firm Convoy shuts down after slashing hundreds of jobs. Read the CEO's memo to employees](https://www.cnbc.com/2023/10/19/bezos-backed-freight-firm-convoy-shuts-down-read-ceo-memo-here.html)
- [Convoy raises $400 million to expand its on-demand trucking platform](https://techcrunch.com/2019/11/13/convoy-raises-400-million-to-expand-its-on-demand-trucking-platform/)
- [Flexport buys Convoy's tech; Convoy CEO Dan Lewis, other employees to join freight company](https://www.geekwire.com/2023/flexport-buys-convoys-tech-convoy-ceo-dan-lewis-other-employees-to-join-freight-company/)