Oway Raises $4 Million for AI-Enabled ‘Rideshare Freight Platform’

Oway raised $4 million in a seed round to support its “rideshare freight platform” that provides an artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled marketplace designed to cut less-than-truckload (LTL) freight costs.

Founder and CEO Phillip Nadjafov shared the news of the seed round in a Friday (Aug. 22) post on LinkedIn.

Oway is designed to reduce LTL freight costs by taking advantage of the fact that 50% of all truck space in the U.S. goes empty, according to the company’s website. The marketplace uses AI to track vehicles and match them with shippers.

By pairing shippers with trucks that have space that is not being used, the marketplace helps carriers boost their earnings and shippers reduce their freight spend, per the site.

The marketplace is currently active in seven states, with 10,000 active vehicles and 1,000 customers, according to the site.

“Oway is growing rapidly to assist in a new era for American industry and we’re partnering with businesses across almost every imaginable category to do it,” Nadjafov said in his post. “If we ultimately lower overall cost of goods sold for products by even 5% with Oway, the impact on the economy will be immense. Supporting trucking companies big and small will ensure the nation’s supply chain infrastructure will thrive for decades to come.”

Y Combinator, which invested in Oway, also shared news of the company’s seed round in a Friday post on X.

“Oway’s rideshare freight platform uses AI to automatically coordinate and sell unused space in trucks to businesses at a 50% discount, for lightning-fast shipping,” it said in the post.

PYMNTS reported in November that freight and fleet management firms are among those most urgently in need of digital alternatives to paper-based processes.

A growing number of online platforms focused on the movement of goods are bringing supply and demand together.

In another recent development in this space, AI logistics software startup Pallet raised $27 million in a Series B funding round.

General Catalyst, which led the round, said at the time that while logistics is an $11 trillion global industry, it runs on legacy software and manual processes. The company added that “the urgency to modernize logistics infrastructure has never been greater.”