Introducing Loop: a logistics payments platform that helps companies reduce costs, monetize payables and control working capital.
Matt McKinney
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CEO & Co-Founder - Loop
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5 minutes to read
The last few years have been significant for the logistics industry. From pandemic delays to geopolitical shifts to ongoing inflation – the global supply chain has become a topic of headlines and conversations across the world. Logistics spend represents 8% of US GDP and is projected to climb over the next five years. It’s clear that the industry is important. It’s also clear that there is a massive opportunity to improve it.
Logistics payments
The most visible part of logistics is the movement of cargo: airplanes, trucks, and ships. But behind the scenes, for each movement of physical goods there is also a movement of money. When goods move one direction, money moves the other.
The same challenges that slow the movement of goods also impact the movement of money: complex rate agreements, regulatory friction, unplanned exceptions, manual paperwork, and messy data. 20% of logistics invoices have some kind of error, and within the domestic trucking industry it takes truck drivers on average 50 days to get paid.
No one wins with this arrangement. Shippers must add back-office staff to reconcile invoices, carriers rely on higher cost capital to generate short-term cash flow, and consumers pay more for goods due to increased logistics costs.
Loop’s platform
Loop solves this problem using technology and data. We’ve built a platform to extract data from a variety of document types and data sources to validate invoice accuracy, so that invoices and payments can be cleared in close to real-time. The result is better balance sheets, improved visibility, and ultimately stronger relationships amongst shippers, carriers, and brokers.
“Loop’s payments infrastructure is foundational to my business for data and payment integrity. It drives productivity improvements for my team and material savings to my customers.” — Justin Hall, PRIMO
Exciting milestone
Today, we are excited to announce $30 million in funding from 8VC, Founders Fund, Susa Ventures, Expa, and Four More Capital to help us fulfill our mission. Our investors are betting big on Loop because of three large trends that are converging:
The renaissance of North American manufacturing and logistics
A secular shift from paper to electronic B2B payments
Rapid advancements in artificial intelligence
The US, Mexico and Canada are experiencing rapid growth in manufacturing and logistics due to a reshaping of the global supply chain. Recent years have exposed the vulnerability of offshore manufacturing. Original equipment manufacturers like Apple are forcing suppliers to relocate manufacturing to Mexico or US land to boost supply chain resilience. This has increased the demand for middle- and last-mile trucking.
Over 50% of companies rely on paper checks to pay bills in a $1.8 trillion logistics industry. One reason for a lack of electronic payment adoption in complex industries like logistics is the painful process for reconciliation of electronic payments. Vertical specific AP/AR automation solutions are streamlining reconciliation and paving the way for electronic payment adoption.
Artificial intelligence is advancing at an unprecedented pace. For domains with unique data such as logistics, AI models must be trained and calibrated on domain-specific data. We’ve assembled a team of domain experts and AI practitioners from Uber, Flexport, and others to build logistics-centric automation in the heart of Loop’s platform.
Looking ahead
We are excited about the opportunity to transform how companies pay and get paid in one of the world’s most important industries – logistics. Thank you to our customers, investors, and team members for joining Loop’s mission to simplify logistics payments. It is day zero.
