A logistics company that can move shipments twice as fast at half the cost is on to something big. When those shipments are mission critical — even life-saving — that level of service is truly transformational. That’s the case with Airspace Technologies, a logistics technology company redefining customer expectations in the time-sensitive delivery market.
Today we’re happy to welcome Airspace to the ScaleVP portfolio with our investment in the company’s Series B funding round.
A low-tech, multi-billion-dollar market
Time-sensitive deliveries are the “white glove” sub-segment of the global logistics market. Broadly speaking, the term logistics covers all the business processes involved in moving a shipment from one point to another, with time-sensitive logistics covering deliveries that absolutely have to arrive at a destination on time. Picture replacement parts for an aircraft stalled on the tarmac or donor organs needed for transplant procedures.
Third-party logistics providers (3PL) are the industry’s traditional intermediaries, linking shippers to trucking and air freight providers. The 3PL market is highly fragmented, consisting of small local providers and larger companies with footprints spanning multiple regional markets. Airspace is a next-generation 3PL provider.
What’s most striking about the 3PL landscape for time-sensitive deliveries — especially given the importance of the shipments themselves — is how decidedly low-tech the industry has been until recently. Critical communication happens through multiple rounds of phone calls and faxes, then there’s error-prone data entry and carbon copies awaiting signatures. This $4 billion industry (conservatively estimated) is clearly in desperate need of a technology solution.
The disconnect between absolutely-must-arrive-on-time deliveries and low-tech 3PL offerings is exactly what makes Airspace’s innovation so exciting.
Airspace merges advanced technologies with operational innovation
Airspace’s end-to-end solution is faster, cheaper, and more transparent. Their secret sauce is advanced technology and greatly improved operational efficiencies leveraging the dynamics of the gig economy. Airspace’s web and mobile apps give shippers end-to-end functionality for quotes, approvals, tracking, and communication. Airspace on-demand workers are likewise connected to the platform on the back end.
We’ve written before about the influence of consumer technology and design on enterprise user experience expectations. Similar dynamics drive Airspace’s success, in the form of dynamic pricing (think Uber), instant routing (Google Maps), and on-demand labor (think TaskRabbit). Underscoring that point is the company’s Alexa integration, which provides tracking and basic customer service.
Airspace has done an admirable job of assembling all of these elements into a user-friendly web and mobile app that masks the complexity they’re managing behind the scenes. Getting from Point A to Point B is not easy in a zero-error environment, but Airspace gives their customers experiences that feel that way. It’s a testament to the team’s operational savvy that their customer list already includes leaders in the healthcare, aerospace, and technology industries.
Leadership with deep logistics and technology experience
Airspace’s advanced solution is a solid beachhead that the company is leveraging into leadership within the white glove delivery space. The hard work they’ve done to date also gives them opportunities in adjacent (and far larger) markets. We’re excited to partner with the company’s co-founders, CEO Nick Bulcao and CTO Ryan Rusnak, and the entire Airspace team. The sky’s no limit for this promising high-growth company.
Jason Chen contributed to this blog post.
