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The startup GoodShip already has big names backing its cloud-based procurement platform. Its pre-seed round, announced in October of 2022, has Stord CEO Sean Henry, Convoy founder Dan Lewis, and FreightWaves founder Craig Fuller listed as investors.
Now in the spring of 2023, the Nashville-based startup is adding to its cap table through a $5 million seed round. The round was co-led by Ironspring Ventures and Chicago Ventures. Other participating firms include previous investors Fuse VC, Cercano Management and project44’s Jett McCandless.
Supply chain and procurement startups have been in the spotlight since COVID spurred international shipping delays. In fact, warehousing, last-mile, and freight technology made up a large percentage of all VC dollars deployed in 2022, according to Pitchbook.
The co-founders behind GoodShip saw room for further innovation.
“Supply chains have always existed, but they haven’t always been online. Having so much data is a recent phenomenon, which is why a lot of it remains siloed in spreadsheets and across disconnected management systems. We have all this rich data but no way to unify, contextualize, or action it — which is where GoodShip comes in,” said co-founder and CEO Ryan Soskin. “GoodShip unifies data from across a shipper’s tech ecosystem, enriches it with market insights, and then provides the tools needed to quickly and easily take action; whether that’s running a bid or collaborating with their carriers directly to measure and improve performance. That kind of end-to-end, real-time data collection and actionability couldn’t exist until all those underlying data systems were in place and the industry was ready and able to adopt them.”
Building GoodShip
Providing data to both shippers and carriers is a competitive advantage for GoodShip’s team. And getting such heavy hitters in the supply chain, logistics, and procurement spaces onto the startup’s cap table early on is a testament to GoodShip’s vision for both the shipper and the carrier side of the equation, says Soskin.
“The response has been so positive, way beyond anything we could have imagined, and now we’re facing a high level of demand that we want to quickly meet and exceed. All the interest and early adoption has helped us clarify our roadmap and given us the confidence that GoodShip is not just something shippers want, it’s something they’re willing to pay for,” he added.
GoodShip is one of the latest freight-focused procurement startups to come out of the supply chain-focused Southeast. The region is the birthplace of giants like Stord and FreightWaves.
Now, GoodShip is building a remote workforce with a heavy concentration of employees in the Southeast and in the Pacific Northwest.
Following the close of the recent seed round, Soskin said the team is focused on expanding its product team with more engineers, designers, and product managers hires and also starting its “go-to-market engine” to grow its customer base.
