Turkey-based freight tech startup Yolda.com raises $1.9M to make road freight shipments across Europe more efficient

Last week, we told you about Sennder, after the Berlin-based Digital freight startup raised $80 million in funding at over a billion-dollar valuation. Sennder offers shippers access to our connected fleet of thousands of trucks and manages over 12,500 trucks across Europe with an over 840 people strong team.

With the pandemic slowly winding down, there’s increasing demand for companies to ship goods around the world. Investors are also paying close attention and opening their wallets to innovative and promising startups like Sennder and Yolda, another freight tech startup based in Turkey.

The unique thing about Yolda, Sennder, and other similar companies is that they combine multiple loads into one truck, which is more efficient for the people shipping goods, and better for the environment.

Today, Yolda announced it has raised $1.9 million to make road freight shipments across Europe more efficient for businesses of all sizes. The round was led by Speedinvest, with participation from existing investor Collective Spark and all previous angel investors. The latest fundraise brings the total it has raised in its first year of operation to $2.7 million.

Founded in 2020 by Murad Özsert and Volkan Özkan, the Istanbul, Turkey-based  Yolda matches freight shipments with available independent carriers to provide fast, cost-effective transport for businesses of all sizes. Unlike rivals, Yolda.com combines shipments to make the most efficient use of trucks’ capacity which reduces customers’ costs and their carbon footprint.

After a successful year focusing on its home country, Yolda.com will expand into the European market. The funding will be used to double the digital freight forwarder’s team size, and increase automation and operational efficiency. This will include developing new technologies in-house with the aim of becoming a leader in the digitalization of the freight industry.

Yolda.com manages the entire logistics operation end-to-end for B2B business partners. The startup’s model supports individual carriers by opening up new business opportunities for them through the Yolda.com platform.

Businesses can create multiple shipment requests and manage them all on a single platform. They can also track shipments via the control panel and measure their logistics operation performances with Yolda.com’s detailed reporting service.

Unlike its competitors, Yolda.com specialises in ‘less than truck load’ (LTL) shipments, harnessing ‘sharing economy’ dynamics. This means it can consolidate loads from multiple shippers, making the most of each truck’s capacity. This helps reduce logistics costs, increases customer satisfaction, and helps reduce the carbon footprint of the end-to-end freight journey.

“More than 30% of all truck movements in Europe are empty. Our LTL focus helps minimise empty or inefficient movements on highways in Turkey and across Europe,” says Yolda.com founding partner and CTO, C. Murad Özsert.

Turkey was a good place for Yolda.com to begin operations. The country has almost 1 million independent truck drivers, and road is the dominant form of inland freight movement. Yolda.com has already partnered with more than 50 logistics companies and thousands of individual carriers in Turkey. The startup has more than 400 corporate and SME customers, and performed more than 15,000 successful shipments in its first year.

“It was important for us that all our current investors took part in the investment, and Speedinvest will strengthen our journey to going global,” says Yolda.com Founding Partner and CEO, Volkan Özkan. “As we grow, our product focus will be on providing greater operational visibility for shippers, through data-driven shipment management, enabled by new technology and team investments.”

Yolda founders Murad Özsert and Volkan Özkan