Forager, a Chicago logistics company working to simplify international shipping, raised its first round of funding to help it grow.
Forager announced Thursday that it raised $3.25 million in a round led by Chicago Ventures and TFI International. Additional individual investors include local investor Ezra Galston, Herb Shear, the former chairman of Genco, and Steven Galanis, the founder and CEO of celebrity shout-out startup Cameo.
Forager was co-founded late last year by Matt Silver, a former employee of Coyote Logistics and the son of Jeff Silver, who founded Coyote in 2006. Using his background in logistics, Silver has helped create a cross-border freight company that primarily ships to Mexico and Canada.
The company got its start focusing on shipping items for the automotive and aerospace industries, but has since expanded into shipping tequila, paper products and produce, Silver said.
“If it goes on a truck and it goes across the border, then we want to help haul it,” he said.
Silver wouldn’t disclose any of Forager’s specific clients, but said the company is working with “several large enterprise-level shippers.”
The new financing will help support the development of Forager’s new tech platform, Scout, which will be available within the next month. The software allows Forager customers to get information on shipping pricing and capacity instantly.
“Over the last year, we’ve really fine-tuned what we’ve been doing,” Silver said. “We’ve evolved significantly and we are not growing a traditional freight brokerage.”
To build Scout, Forager has grown its development team over the last several months. Earlier this year, Forager hired Matt Weber as its chief technology officer.
“Weber has a unique skillset of having both a strong technical and development background while also having a strong eye for design and product, and it really shows in the technology we’ll be launching,” Silver said.
Forager now employs 30 people in its West Loop office, a space it shares with Chicago startup Cameo.
“It’s a lot of fun,” Silver said.
The completion of Forager’s seed round comes as Chicago’s logistics scene is heating up. Earlier this week, Uber announced that it is officially making Chicago the headquarters for its Uber Freight division, and hiring 2,000 new employees in the Windy City over the next three years.
Additionally, several home-grown logistics tech companies have been raising big funding rounds over the last two years. FourKites raised $50 million earlier this year, and last year, Project44 raised $80 million over two rounds and ShipBob raised $40 million.
