RoadSync, an Atlanta-based digital payment platform for the transportation industry, has raised $5.7 million in a Series A round led by Base10 Partners. Previous investor Hyde Park Venture and Companyon Ventures also participated in the round.
According to RoadSync CEO Robin Gregg, the funding will primarily be used for hiring in engineering and sales, while also aiding in the expansion of the startup's current service offerings. The new round brings the startup's total funding raised to just under $10 million.
The funding comes at a time when RoadSync is positioned to help ease some of the strains being created by the global pandemic.
"We are finding that customers in the transportation segment are still active given the pandemic going on right now, so our customers are very busy trying to serve the nation's need from food to essential goods," Gregg said.
RoadSync, which Gregg describes as a "Square for the trucking industry," automates the payments and other financial processes that are traditionally completed on paper. By and large, a majority of trucking payments and invoices are made on paper (over 60%), which can be inefficient, error-prone and fraud-prone, she said.
"[RoadSync is] a better, faster and safer experience for everyone involved," she said.
Companyon Ventures, a venture firm that typically invests in B2B SaaS companies, was a perfect new partner to bring on to the round, Gregg said. It's also a plus, she said, to have an investor on the East Coast, whereas previous investors in RoadSync are based in San Francisco and Chicago.
"One of the things I like from that team is they have a lot of people with experience in scaling platforms to market," she said.
RoadSync launched its platform in 2017 and processes on average more than 50,000 unique transactions a month at more than 400 locations nationwide. Last year, RoadSync announced it had processed $100 million worth of payments processed since launching the platform.
While the country is reliant on the trucking industry to distribute essential goods, such as food to grocery stores and medical and health care safety equipment to hospitals, it's an overwhelming time for those working in the industry with such a high demand, Gregg said.
"One of the things we can do is help a little piece of their business and make things easier and more efficient," she said.
Gregg said it's certainly been a challenge moving her own team to a virtual organization overnight as a majority of U.S. businesses move to remote working during the coronavirus pandemic. RoadSync currently employs about 30 full-time workers and 15 part-time workers. Most recently, the company hired 10 employees in the last 45 days and expects to add another five to 10 employees in the next few months, depending on the current state of affairs.
"We are happy that the industry we support is still open, but it’s still challenging," Gregg said.
In addition to payment processing for truck drivers, carriers and brokers, RoadSync's digital nature makes it easy to maintain physical distance from others during the pandemic.
"In this current environment, not only [are paper payments and paper processing] not an efficient way to do business, but it’s also not a safe way to do business," she said.
Gregg said automating the payments process and other aspects of revenue collection for the transpiration industry keeps employees, who are contributing to an important part of the economy, safe.
"We’re obviously a small part of that, but we think we’re helping businesses conduct business more safely," she said.
