Published March 11, 2020
Leaf announces significant milestones, including a $20M investment round, in our mission to transform B2B transportation.
Using historical and forward-looking data, Leaf’s platform helps shippers and providers plan and schedule future shipments, ensure customers operate on the equilibrium of supply and demand, and reduce volatility and the need for manual, transactional operations inherent in the trucking industry.
Leveraging Leaf’s analytics and tools, including Leaf’s digital Forward contracts, customers have reported more than 10% increases in productivity, freeing up resources to focus on more strategic activities. The result is a material reduction in empty miles, time and effort that drives improved effectiveness, efficiency and sustainability.
After a year of solidifying partnerships — and having just closed a $20M Series A raise — Leaf has demonstrated the market is ready to operate the future model for over the road transportation.
Partnerships Prove Demand
Leaf is achieving milestones from our work with customers such as Anheuser-Busch InBev and Solvay, which illustrates the expanding capabilities of our platform.
AB InBev is looking ahead to the automation era and planning for it now. The world’s largest brewer is increasing shipping efficiency, eliminating empty miles, reducing emissions, and future-proofing its business model.
“We’ve been working with Leaf since 2018, enhancing service to our customers and increasing predictability for our carrier partners.” said Loren Foster, Senior Director of OTR and Dedicated Transportation at AB Inbev. “Using Leaf as a “logic layer”, we plan to further automate transportation decision making, systematically reducing manual effort and eliminating empty miles across our network as we work towards our goal of a carbon-neutral supply chain.”
Solvay Technology Solutions, a leader in specialty mining reagents, phosphorus-based chemistry and UV stabilization of polymers, serves a diverse range of markets, from mining, agriculture and agrochemicals to automotive, electronics, life sciences, and industrial markets. They rely on Leaf to help ensure a buttoned-up supply chain operation, not only on the execution side, but on the prediction side.
“Leaf is helping us bring more predictability to our transportation operations, which first and foremost benefits our customers.” said Siva Narayanan, Director Global Supply Chain, Solvay Technology Solutions. “Our work together has helped us improve supply chain reliability, and the optimum use of our storage assets.”
Momentum Towards Our Vision
Leaf is also announcing a $20 million Series A investment round led by Playground Global, with strong support from existing investors Floodgate, FJ Labs, Dynamo, and Schematic Ventures. Playground Global Partner, Laurie Yoler, will join Leaf’s board of directors.
“Our investment in Leaf is indicative of our strong belief in their ability to completely re-imagine B2B transportation,” said Laurie Yoler, Partner at Playground Global. “Leaf’s platform gives shippers and carriers access to information they’ve never had, enabling them to make well-informed, proactive decisions. The resulting efficiencies have far-reaching benefits for everyone in the supply chain from manufacturer to consumer.”
Leaf is excited to partner with Playground and expand its relationships with existing investors and partners to leverage their deep understanding of technology as we expand the platform.
Our partnerships and funding allows Leaf to both deepen our work with existing customers, and to enroll additional shippers and providers to extend the Leaf network across more of the transportation industry.
We’re eager to see what the future of shipping and transportation holds, and to help guarantee service and cost reliability.