Bill Gates Backs Uber Freight Rival, Joining Other Billionaires

As Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos jockey for the designation of world’s wealthiest man, the Seattle billionaires are united behind at least one local venture. They’re both investors in a trucking logistics startup that competes with Uber, according to Bloomberg.

Convoy, a two-year-old Seattle company, makes software that matches nearby and available truckers to a shipping job. Convoy said it raised a new round of funding from Bill Gates’s Cascade Investment and other backers. Gates joins Amazon’s Bezos, who invested earlier. The latest financing totals $62 million.

The investment won’t break the bank for Gates or Bezos, but Convoy has become a hot startup investment among fellow billionaires. Salesforce Chief Executive Officer Marc Benioff and KKR & Co. co-CEO Henry Kravis are also shareholders. IAC/InterActiveCorp. Chairman Barry Diller participated in the new round with Gates.

Convoy was initially pitched as an “Uber for trucking“ and has raised $80 million in total since starting in 2015. But this year, Uber rolled out its own version of on-demand trucking. The service, called Uber Freight, connects truck drivers with long-haul assignments. There are other providers, such as Trucker Path, but Uber’s financial heft, having raised more than $15 billion since its inception, makes it a force.

Convoy CEO Dan Lewis said he hopes to take advantage of Uber’s distractions. “It isn’t clear what’s going to happen with Uber,“ Lewis said. “The leadership of the company in general is gone.“ Lewis added that Convoy is fulfilling thousands of shipments and generating millions in sales a week. He said sales volume is doubling every quarter but declined to provide figures. Consumer giants Unilever and Anheuser-Busch InBev have signed on as customers.