Founder Interview
How SemiCab Grew Monthly Freight Volume from $0 to $1M in 11 Months Across 8 Enterprise Shippers (Interview with Founder Ajesh Kapoor)
- Interview Date
- February 22, 2022
- Interviewee
- Ajesh KapoorFounder
Company Metrics at Interview Time
Monthly Freight Volume (January 2022)
$1M
Customers (2022)
8
Total Funding Raised
$5M
Carriers on Platform (2022)
1,200
Team Size (2022)
16
Historical Snapshot
These numbers were reported by Ajesh Kapoor during his interview with Nathan Latka in February 2022 and are a historical snapshot, not current figures. See SemiCab’s current numbers.

Key Takeaways
- 01SemiCab launched in 2018 and began onboarding paying customers at the end of 2020
- 028 enterprise shippers including Staples, PepsiCo, Colgate, and HP were on the platform as of early 2022
- 03Monthly freight volume grew from roughly $30,000 in April 2021 to $1M in January 2022, an 11-month run
- 04The platform had 1,200 carriers registered, of which 700 had been actively used over the company's lifetime
- 05Average freight value is $2,700 per load, with about 100 loads per week processed in January 2022
- 06SemiCab targets a 12 to 15% take rate on total freight volume processed
- 07The company raised $2.1M in a priced round at a valuation the founder put below $15M in late 2020, then $3M on SAFE notes
- 08Total funding raised to date is $5M from supply chain, technology, and finance professionals
- 09The engineering team consists of 10 people including product managers, out of 16 total full-time staff
- 10SemiCab maintains a 99% plus load acceptance rate versus an industry standard of 50 to 70%
Company Metrics at Time of Interview
| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Year Founded | 2018 | Founder interview, Feb 2022 |
| Customers (2022) | 8 | Founder interview, Feb 2022 |
| Carriers on Platform (2022) | 1,200 | Founder interview, Feb 2022 |
| Carriers Actively Used (lifetime) (2022) | 700 | Founder interview, Feb 2022 |
| Monthly Freight Volume (January 2022) | $1M | Founder interview, Feb 2022 |
| Loads per Week (January 2022) | 100 | Founder interview, Feb 2022 |
| Average Freight Value per Load (2022) | $2,700 | Founder interview, Feb 2022 |
| First Month Freight Volume (April 2021) | $30,000 | Founder interview, Feb 2022 |
| Load Acceptance Rate (2022) | 99%+ | Founder interview, Feb 2022 |
| Team Size (2022) | 16 | Founder interview, Feb 2022 |
| Engineers (incl. product managers) (2022) | 10 | Founder interview, Feb 2022 |
| Priced Round Valuation Ceiling (2020) | below $15M | Founder interview, Feb 2022 |
| Priced Round Amount Raised (2020) | $2.1M | Founder interview, Feb 2022 |
| SAFE Note Raised (2021) | $3M | Founder interview, Feb 2022 |
| Total Funding Raised | $5M | Founder interview, Feb 2022 |
| SAFE Note Cap (2021) | $35M | Founder interview, Feb 2022 |
Growth Breakdown
Freight Volume and Take Rate
SemiCab processed its first loads in April 2021 at roughly $30,000 in monthly freight volume. By January 2022, that figure had grown to approximately $1M per month, representing roughly 25 to 30x growth over eleven months. SemiCab targets the lower end of a 12.5% to 15% cut of that freight volume as its own revenue. Ajesh declined to state what the business actually made in January, saying he thinks about margins and EBITDA on an annualized basis given how volatile the trucking market was at the time.
Customers
The company began onboarding paying shippers at the end of 2020 and had eight enterprise customers by early 2022, including Staples, PepsiCo, Colgate, and HP. Ajesh noted that some customers joined as recently as September 2021, meaning January 2022 volume did not yet reflect the full contribution of all eight accounts.
Team
SemiCab had 16 full-time employees as of February 2022, with 10 of those on the engineering and product team. The company has not raised institutional capital and has grown its team using $5M raised from supply chain, technology, and finance professionals.
Funding
SemiCab raised $2.1M in a priced round in late 2020 at what Ajesh described as a valuation below $15M, then followed with a $3M SAFE note at a $35M cap in late 2021 or early 2022. Total funding raised to date is $5M. Ajesh said the company plans to raise a Series A with an institutional lead investor when the time is right.
Growth Strategy
Focused Carrier Network Over Scale
Rather than chasing 50,000 or 100,000 carriers, SemiCab deliberately built a tight network of 1,200 vetted carriers. This focus on carrier loyalty and quality allowed the company to maintain a 99% plus load acceptance rate, far above the industry standard of 50 to 70%.
Enterprise Shipper Anchors
SemiCab targeted large enterprise shippers like Staples, PepsiCo, Colgate, and HP as anchor customers. Ajesh explained that winning a single large shipper creates a dense enough load base to optimize carrier utilization across lanes, which is the core of the company's efficiency model.
Optimization-Driven Take Rate
SemiCab makes money by combining loads from multiple shippers into efficient round trips, capturing the spread between what shippers pay and what carriers are paid. The company only earns when it creates efficiency, targeting 12 to 15% of freight volume as its own revenue.
Carrier Vetting and Qualification
Carriers self-register but must pass safety and insurance qualification before receiving loads. This vetting process, while resulting in some carriers never receiving work, ensures that shippers receive consistent, high-quality service and that the platform maintains its load acceptance rate.
Selective Investor Strategy
Rather than raising a priced round quickly, SemiCab used a SAFE bridge to extend runway while being selective about which institutional investor would lead its Series A. Ajesh said the lead investor choice has a direct implication on where the company goes, and the team was not willing to compromise on that.
Best Quotes
“So customers are large enterprises like Staples and PepsiCo, Colgate, HP, some of the smaller midsize companies that are always looking to move goods in a truckload, full truckload. When you see those large trucks out there, they're moving goods, and they're not doing it very efficiently. So we are building this marketplace to make them much more efficient than they are today.”
“We started bringing on customers at the end of twenty twenty, and we have eight customers that we have brought on during this time.”
“We have about 1,200 carriers, but we try to create a very long term relationship with them, so we are not just addressing the shippers who are paying for transportation, but these guys that we take good care of and build a more predictable revenue stream for them so they are taking advantage of the marketplace.”
“Out of the 1,200 that have joined the platform, we have actively used 700 during our lifetime, till this point.”
“We have been able to maintain a good 99% plus load acceptance rate with every single one of our customers. Industry standard out there is somewhere between 50 to 70%. So that's a big, huge jump for us, right?”
“We have not raised institutional capital till now, so we have raised capital from all kinds of professionals, from the supply chain space, from the technology and finance space, so a whole lot of people who have been very interested and very supportive.”
“It's more a question of not running out of runway and just making sure that you are going to get to the point where you have the right investor in.”
“If I knew how it takes a village to build a venture like this, if I knew it the first time I was trying to build my startup, it would have made it so much easier, so much easier.”
What Happened Next
This interview captured SemiCab at an early but fast-moving stage in February 2022, just eleven months after the first loads moved across the platform and with eight enterprise shippers on board. The figures here, including the $1M monthly freight volume, 1,200 carriers, and $5M total raised, reflect what Ajesh Kapoor reported at that point in time and are not current. Visit the SemiCab company profile on GetLatka for the latest available data.
View SemiCab’s current profile and metricsFull Transcript
Chapters
- 0:00Introduction and Company Overview
- 0:20Who Are SemiCab's Customers
- 0:52Carrier Network and Marketplace Structure
- 2:43Shipper Count and Customer Onboarding Timeline
- 3:02Company Launch and Platform Development
- 3:27Freight Volume Growth and January 2022 Run Rate
- 6:36Loads per Week and Average Load Value
- 8:09Carrier Vetting and Qualification Process
- 9:48Funding History and Capital Raised
- 10:38Priced Round, SAFE Note, and Valuation
- 12:17How SemiCab Makes Money: The Round-Trip Spread
- 13:48Target Take Rate and Why Revenue Is Not Disclosed
- 17:39Marketplace Liquidity and Load Acceptance Rate
- 18:57Team Size and Engineering Headcount
- 19:52Competitive Landscape in Digital Freight
- 22:00Famous Five Rapid Fire Questions
- 24:05Closing Summary and Wrap Up
Introduction and Company Overview
Nathan Latka
00:00Hey, folks. My guest today is Ajesh Kapoor. He believes there's a better are better ways to do things. He rejects the status quo and is always looking to learn more so we can continue to improve each day. Numbers are constantly on his mind. Today, he's building semicab.com to make transportation a competitive advantage. Ajesh, are you ready to take us to the top?
Ajesh Kapoor
00:18>> Excited to do it, Nathan.
Who Are SemiCab's Customers
Nathan Latka
00:20Okay. So who's paying for semicab right now? Who are your customers?
Ajesh Kapoor
00:24>> So customers are large enterprises like Staples and PepsiCo, Colgate, HP, some of the smaller midsize companies that are always looking to move goods in a truckload, full truckload. When you see those large trucks out there, they're moving goods, and they're not doing it very efficiently. So we are building this marketplace to make them much more efficient than they are today.
Carrier Network and Marketplace Structure
Nathan Latka
00:52So let's talk about the marketplace. How many people that own a truck do you have on your platform?
Ajesh Kapoor
00:59>> That's a good question. It's a very fragmented market.
01:04>> We have an industry that is dominated by these numbers where people talk about bringing in 10,000, 50,000, 100,000, a million trucking companies on the platform. The fact of the matter is US market is dominated by small carriers and owner operators, close to somewhere around 600,000 legal entities that are operating trucks. We try to be very targeted in how we bring in partners into the ecosystem, so we have about 1,200 carriers, but we try to create a
01:39>> very long term relationship with them, so we are not just addressing the shippers who are paying for transportation, but these guys that we take good care of and build a more predictable revenue stream for them so they are taking advantage of the marketplace.
Nathan Latka
01:57And over your entire company lifespan, how many shippers who pay for transportation have paid at least a dollar through your platform?
Ajesh Kapoor
02:04>> So we, again, on that side also, we try to bring in a small number of shippers that we want to create a core with, and once we have built the core up to a reasonable size, that's when we start attracting the smaller and mid sized shippers. So when we bring in a large shipper,
02:25>> this large enterprise, we don't really have a good sense in the market of what kind of numbers they represent. So a large beverage company may spend somewhere around a billion dollars a year just on the truckload part of moving goods.
Shipper Count and Customer Onboarding Timeline
Nathan Latka
02:43No, I get that, Ajesh, but how many do you have that have paid at least a dollar through your full lifetime?
Ajesh Kapoor
02:48>> Yeah, we started bringing on customers at the end of twenty twenty, and we have eight customers that we have brought on during this time.
Nathan Latka
02:57Okay, got it. So '20 Now, when did you launch? 2020 is when you got your trucker, but when did you launch the business?
Company Launch and Platform Development
Ajesh Kapoor
03:02>> We launched the business in 2018. We wanted to build out the platform. Wanted to the first time we were introducing this kind of technology, the predictive optimization technology, so we tested that out over a very, very large dataset before we actually launched and went to the market.
Nathan Latka
03:19And help us understand velocity today. Let's just look at January 2022. What's the total project value that went through your platform in those thirty days?
Freight Volume Growth and January 2022 Run Rate
Ajesh Kapoor
03:27>> Yeah, so that has been a pretty crazy growth for us. So when we talk about April last year, April 2021, right in the middle of COVID when we are acquiring these customers and moving goods, we started with, let's say, five to 10 loads a week.
Nathan Latka
03:44Woah, woah, woah. What's the dollar value of that?
Ajesh Kapoor
03:46>> Oh, yeah. So if you annualized it, it would be $400,000 when we look at January that we just finished.
Nathan Latka
03:57Oh, what's going on there, YouTube? Good to see you guys. Now imagine this. You love watching these interviews with SaaS founders, but imagine if we took all of the valuation data out from over 2,807 interviews I've done manually. Saves you a lot of time. Well, we've done this, we've built it into the beautiful interface inside of Founderpath. Check this out. I'll show you how you can access this in a second. But you log in, you connect
04:20your Stripe account, you see your valuation real time, you can see what it changed over the past eighty eight days and even set goals for valuation this year. Now the secret evaluation is there's many different ways to value a SaaS business. So the reason you're gonna see three or four different valuations inside of your Founderpath dashboard, this is all free by the way, is because depending on who's doing the buying of your SaaS company, you're gonna
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06:20into the interview.
Ajesh Kapoor
06:21>> We were somewhere in excess of 11,000,000 annualized, right? So a good 25 to 30x growth during this period.
Nathan Latka
06:31And how many loads is that through your platform in January 2022 that represents 11,000,000 in project value?
Loads per Week and Average Load Value
Ajesh Kapoor
06:36>> Yeah, about 100 loads a week is what we do.
Nathan Latka
06:40So about 400 total.
Ajesh Kapoor
06:41>> Yep.
Nathan Latka
06:42Okay. So these are expensive, right? If we take 11,000,000 in project value divided by 400 total loads, these are at $27,500 per truck on average, like per per load.
Ajesh Kapoor
06:53>> What? 2,700, not 27,000.
Nathan Latka
06:56Well, if we take 11,000,000 divided by four
Ajesh Kapoor
06:58>> That's the annualized number, Nathan.
Nathan Latka
07:01Okay, got it. So again, the question was, just in January, how many did you So you did about a million in January across four That's 100 right. Okay, got it. So yeah, I see what you're saying now. So it's about 2,700. And what's the average use case? Are they shipping from driving from Chicago to New York City or from San Francisco to Washington, DC?
Ajesh Kapoor
07:21>> Yeah, there's not a typical load for us. We are moving goods all the way from So Southern California is big, right? All the stuff that is coming in on those ports, it's going across the country. So coming in from Southern Cal into Dallas, into the Northeast, into Chicago, into Atlanta, and then you are moving goods between Northeast and the Midwest. That's a big volume. Everything from between Texas, Atlanta in the Southeast, going up into the Midwest
07:54>> and the Northeast, those are some of the busier lanes for us. And then we do a little bit of stuff in the Rockies, where, of course, you get into all kinds of squirrelly stuff as the snow starts coming down as heavy and shutting down highways when it does that.
Carrier Vetting and Qualification Process
Nathan Latka
08:09This is fascinating. Okay, so just to summarize, the marketplace as it today has about 1,200 people that drive trucks on it, and you match them up with shippers who pay for transportation, where you have eight big clients right now. Total right now, your run rate, you know, they did about a million bucks in total project value across those eight shippers in January. Of the 400 loads that were processed, how many truck owners, the 1,200 on your
08:32platform, facilitated one of those 400 payments or 400 shipments?
Ajesh Kapoor
08:36>> So out of the 1,200 that have joined the platform, we have actively used 700 during our lifetime, till this point.
Nathan Latka
08:44So what you add actively use means you pay them at least a dollar?
Ajesh Kapoor
08:48>> You pay them at least a few thousand dollars, yes.
Nathan Latka
08:51Okay, got it.
Ajesh Kapoor
08:51>> So, yes.
Nathan Latka
08:53So what happened to the other 500? You did all the work to do on the platform, and you haven't been able to get them any work
Ajesh Kapoor
08:58>> Yeah, every single time. So there are a whole lot of things that we go through. So we go through a carrier betting period where we want to make sure that the customers are receiving the best quality service that they can. And so you go through that period, you're watching the carriers, and then some of the carriers don't qualify. They join the network, they join the platform, but they don't get through the qualification process that we have
09:20>> to bring them in and give them a load, right?
Nathan Latka
09:22What's the number one reason people don't make it through? What's the actual reason?
Ajesh Kapoor
09:26>> There's a whole lot of historical data that we want to go through. We want to make sure that the insurance requirements are met, the safety requirements are met. So we allow the carriers to self register, but if they don't meet the safety and insurance criteria, it's very hard for us to work with them.
Funding History and Capital Raised
Nathan Latka
09:48I see, I see. Okay. Let's put all this on a timeline. So you launched in 2018, you're your first customer, it sounds like in 2020. You're scaling out today. Have you bootstrapped this, Ajesh, or have you raised capital?
Ajesh Kapoor
09:57>> We have not raised institutional capital till now, so we have raised capital from all kinds of professionals, from the supply chain space, from the technology and finance space, so a whole lot of people who have been very interested and very supportive.
Nathan Latka
10:13How much have you raised from those people?
Ajesh Kapoor
10:15>> About 5,000,000.
Nathan Latka
10:17Okay, and would you consider that like a seed round?
Ajesh Kapoor
10:21>> What we did last was a pre seed followed by a bridge round. Now, terminology for the rounds has been changing all the time. So most likely what we will raise next, we are going to call it a series A.
Nathan Latka
10:33I see, I see. But all this been on a convertible note paper or has anyone priced the round?
Priced Round, SAFE Note, and Valuation
Ajesh Kapoor
10:38>> We have done a price round before.
Nathan Latka
10:40You have? Okay. So some portion of the 5,000,000 you raised to date, like the last tranche of that was at a priced round, the valuation.
Ajesh Kapoor
10:47>> Yeah. After the price round, we again went back to a safe note.
Nathan Latka
10:51Why did you okay. Well, let's break that down. So what was the valuation on the priced round that you did, or a range is fine?
Ajesh Kapoor
10:57>> So that was below $15,000,000 when we did the priced round in the end of twenty twenty.
Nathan Latka
11:04Okay. And how much did you raise on the $15,000,000 valuation?
Ajesh Kapoor
11:07>> Was, till that point, we have raised right around 2,100,000, till that point.
Nathan Latka
11:142,100,000. Okay. So 2,100,000 on notes, and then those all converted at the 15,000,000 valuation. Did you raise more money at 15,000,000, like on top of the 2.1 or just 2.1?
Ajesh Kapoor
11:26>> Just the 2.1, including the price round, and then we raised the rest of the 3,000,000 after that on safe notes.
Nathan Latka
11:33Why did you go back to a safe note?
Ajesh Kapoor
11:35>> It's just when you're trying to do a bridge round, Nathan, it's so much more convenient to go the safe route. You can get it done rather quickly, and you don't really put the onus of valuation again because the market today is where the valuations are pretty nuts, especially in a freight tech kind of marketplace.
Nathan Latka
11:59But just to be clear, that 3,000,000, was that this year or it was 2021?
Ajesh Kapoor
12:02>> It was end of 'twenty one, beginning of 'twenty two, yes.
Nathan Latka
12:05I see. So 3,000,000 c. Now what cap was that node at?
Ajesh Kapoor
12:09>> About 35.
Nathan Latka
12:10Okay. So your valuation still, like, technically went up. Right? You're just comparing the priced round to a cap.
Ajesh Kapoor
12:16>> That's right.
How SemiCab Makes Money: The Round-Trip Spread
Nathan Latka
12:17Interesting. Okay. Tell me more about We haven't talked about how you make money. You've had this great marketplace. On a $2,700 shipment, how much do you make?
Ajesh Kapoor
12:27>> Yeah. So we don't approach it as a very basic marketplace because those are a dime a dozen where a load comes in and they basically find a carrier and they try to make money from that. Where we make money is when we bring in all these loads from different people and we are able to utilize the resources that are coming in from the carriers, from the truckers, much more efficiently. So for example, a truck in a
12:54>> week would drive 2,800 miles and get paid for less than 2,000 miles. We use it for about 2,500 miles. So those 500 additional miles generate, let's say, 1,200 to $1,500 in additional revenue. We take a part of that. So we don't make money unless we are creating those efficiencies in the market.
Nathan Latka
13:14So you're taking a percentage from drivers where you've taken unutilized miles driven and made them utilized, more efficient?
Ajesh Kapoor
13:24>> Not directly, Nathan. So what we do is we sell transportation services, trucking services to these large companies. We buy trucking services from the carriers, but we use a different model on that side. So we might combine three loads from three different shippers on one side, but then execute it as a round trip. And that's where we create the spread and make money.
Target Take Rate and Why Revenue Is Not Disclosed
Nathan Latka
13:48Okay, okay. So in January, how much did you guys make as a business? About a range is fine.
Ajesh Kapoor
13:55>> Not going there right now, Nathan.
Nathan Latka
13:56Why is that?
Ajesh Kapoor
13:58>> It's just when we think about the margins and the EBITDA for the business, we think about it on more of an annualized basis. When you look at the trucking market right now, the trucking market is so up and down all the time, but it has been at a crazy up, at historic highs the last
Nathan Latka
14:15Well, let's talk about annualized. What do you think you'll do in 2022 total revenue?
Ajesh Kapoor
14:20>> Yeah, we like to target the lower end of 12.5% to 15% on that revenue that we bring in.
Nathan Latka
14:29So, got it. So on the million that you processed in January, which right now annualizes about 12,000,000, you're saying you target between a 12 to 15% sort of take rate from that?
Ajesh Kapoor
14:39>> That's right.
Nathan Latka
14:39I see. I see. Got it. So on a million, you could say maybe you guys took 13% of that or $130,000 last month.
Ajesh Kapoor
14:47>> Once we start, yeah. So that depends on how efficiently we execute the freight, so that part of the world fluctuates for us.
Nathan Latka
14:56I see. How much will that fluctuate this year? Is it based off seasonality or something else?
Ajesh Kapoor
15:01>> It's not just based on seasonality, it's based on when the customer enters, where the efficiencies come in, because every single time a new customer joins our ecosystem, we start expanding the entire footprint, including our current customers, right? So as we go through the expansion, parts of it are less efficient than others. But the idea there is, as you are getting to 50,000,000, 100,000,000, 500,000,000, you are going to stay, become very, very consistent at that 12% to
15:34>> 15% level.
Nathan Latka
15:35And if you're doing sort of a million dollars in volume last month, do you remember what you were doing a year ago so we can calculate growth rate?
Ajesh Kapoor
15:42>> Zero.
Nathan Latka
15:44Well, you said that you did Let me go back to my notes here.
Ajesh Kapoor
15:48>> April 2021.
Nathan Latka
15:50April 2020 is when you processed your first five to 10 loads.
Ajesh Kapoor
15:53>> Yeah. So, let's say April 2021 is when we did, let's say, $30,000 in loads.
15:59>> It. I see. Got it.
Nathan Latka
16:00So, you've basically It's only February. We're about to be January, February, March, April. So, you've only been in business sort of eleven months, but you've grown from your first month of revenue in April of about $30,000 a month in revenue up to, call it, $100,000, 120 ish now, something like that.
Ajesh Kapoor
16:14>> To a million.
16:16>> Well, 120. Well Oh, sorry.
Nathan Latka
16:17You're talking about volume, not your cut.
Ajesh Kapoor
16:19>> I'm talking about your cut. So, if you're doing a million in January, your cut was about $120,000 or something like that.
16:25>> Yeah. So, back then, it would have been, what, $3,000 to $4,000?
Nathan Latka
16:29Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. That's big growth rate. Small base, obviously, we're playing games with percentages here, but still a good growth rate. I guess I just don't understand. With that kind of growth rate, I just don't understand why you wouldn't go keep things clean and do it on a traditional equity round at like a $30,000,000, $40,000,000, $50,000,000 valuation. Is it really that much faster? Is it worth it to go back to the note?
Ajesh Kapoor
16:53>> It's not about
16:56>> So the note is just a component of the kind of round that you're doing and the timeline that you're doing it. The reason we did the bridge round was we're talking to a lot of investors, but the investor that you want to bring on as a lead investor, that has a very direct implication on where the company is going to go. So we are being extremely selective about who we want to lead that round. It's not
17:19>> like we're trying to stay away from institutional money. If we want to grow from 10 to 100,000,000, we are going to need institutional money and we are going to go do that round. It's more a question of not running out of runway and just making sure that you are going to get to the point where you have the right investor in.
Marketplace Liquidity and Load Acceptance Rate
Nathan Latka
17:39How do you make sure that your marketplace has liquidity? So let's say one of these eight shippers pays and needs you to ship shoes from Chicago to Denver, but you can't go buy that inventory for many truckers because some other people are paying more than you. There's a lot of these networks out there. How do you guarantee that placement?
Ajesh Kapoor
17:59>> Yeah, it's not just a question of So that was one of the thoughts that we had when we were starting out and we were extremely focused on it. So that's the one big part where we talk about using the carriers more and more and more that we have in the network and not go for 50,000 carriers. That's a big reason. So the carrier loyalty starts building up. And when you have that focus, so in our case,
18:27>> have been able to maintain a good 99% plus load acceptance rate with every single one of our customers. Industry standard out there is somewhere between 50 to 70%. So that's a big, huge jump for us, right? And we focus on that,
18:46>> not stay away from, Oh, if we have to pay a little bit more money, we'll pay a little bit more money. But over the long term, the basic concept is if you're doing right by the carrier, the carrier is going to do right by you.
Team Size and Engineering Headcount
Nathan Latka
18:57And how many folks are on your team today full time?
Ajesh Kapoor
19:00>> 16 people full time.
Nathan Latka
19:02How many engineers?
Ajesh Kapoor
19:04>> We have the engineering team of 10 people, including product managers.
Nathan Latka
19:09Okay. Okay. Got it. Very interesting.
19:13It sounds like across eight customers, I mean, it sounds like what they're I mean, eight into a million, what? They're each spending like $150,000 a month, something like that?
Ajesh Kapoor
19:22>> Some of them are just starting out, right, Nathan? So the big huge pieces where some of these customers have some customers started in March and April last year. Some started in September last year. Some are just getting going. So the numbers in January don't really reflect the overall volume that we are doing.
Nathan Latka
19:42And why are you? We'd already talked about you have to win two sides here. Why are these eight shippers choosing to go with you versus your bigger competitors that maybe can negotiate for lower rates?
Competitive Landscape in Digital Freight
Ajesh Kapoor
19:52>> Yeah, it's not about rates and it's not about what those guys bring in. We have a fairly unique business model in that we don't go for transactional pricing and dynamic pricing that pretty much everybody in the digital freight space is bringing in.
Nathan Latka
20:10Which are who? Name three people in the space.
Ajesh Kapoor
20:12>> So, you have,
20:16>> let's say, Convoy out of Seattle, a great company, Uber Freight. There's two companies called Transfix and Loadsmart out of New York. All of them went after a very different problem in this space, right? They basically said, you have a whole lot of phone calls, very little automation in the brokerage space. You have small carriers and owner operators have a very hard time finding a load, and they basically automated that process, brought those carriers into the mix,
20:50>> they did a great job of it, right?
Nathan Latka
20:51Do you compete with Freightwaves?
Ajesh Kapoor
20:55>> We don't compete with Freightwaves, no.
Nathan Latka
20:56What about Flock Freight?
Ajesh Kapoor
20:58>> Not really, because Flock Freight is also trying to do taking the less than truckload shipments and kind of executing that in a full truckload multi stop model. Very, very different from where we are trying to play.
Nathan Latka
21:12But aren't you all competing for the same space on those 600,000 trucking companies in The US?
Ajesh Kapoor
21:19>> Not exactly. So where we go is we don't really specifically go and try to find supply from the small to midsize carriers or owner operators. We want to bring in the mid to large carriers because we are trying to create a virtual dedicated fleet in there. So when you are doing that, you're basically finding the capacity from wherever you can find it and get that into the system, And utilize them that utilization, that efficiency, that optimization,
21:53>> you're not really going to hear about that in this space at all. Nobody talks about optimization in this space when they're trying to approach this problem.
Famous Five Rapid Fire Questions
Nathan Latka
22:00Very cool. Ajesh, I love what you built. Great story here. In the meantime, let's wrap up here with the famous five. Number one, favorite business book?
Ajesh Kapoor
22:08>> Let's see. Peter Drucker, I guess.
Nathan Latka
22:10Number two, is there a CEO you're following or stocking?
Ajesh Kapoor
22:14>> No, that's a good question. I like what Brad Jacobs did at XPO.
22:22>> I used to follow Chris Lofgren at Schneider National.
22:27>> There are so many of them. Carol Tome is a great example at UPS right now.
Nathan Latka
22:32Number three, what's your favorite online tool for building the business?
Ajesh Kapoor
22:36>> Oh, that's tough one. There's just so many different technologies that we've been able to use that have shortened everything that we are doing right now, anything from all the whole thing that AWS has compiled in there. Then you combine that with all the stuff that is happening on the fintech side, like Brex and RAMP, on the HR side, like Gusto, every one of them has an advantage. Now, when we talk about the marketing side of it,
23:09>> HubSpot, Webflow, all these things have just made it so much easier to build a business this time around than what we used to have ten, twenty years ago, right?
Nathan Latka
23:20Number four, how many hours of sleep do get every night?
Ajesh Kapoor
23:26>> That changes. That changes, Nathan. So anywhere from four to eight, depending on
23:33>> what day it is and what the financial situation looks like.
Nathan Latka
23:37And what's your situation? Married, single, kids?
Ajesh Kapoor
23:40>> Married with a very beautiful kid. Yes.
Nathan Latka
23:43Okay. One kiddo. And how old are you, Ajesh?
Ajesh Kapoor
23:45>> I am, oh man, 55.
23:49>> 55.
Nathan Latka
23:50Last question. Something you wish you knew when you were 20.
Ajesh Kapoor
23:54>> Oh, if I knew how it takes a village to build a venture like this, if I knew it the first time I was trying to build my startup, it would have made it so much easier, so much easier.
Closing Summary and Wrap Up
Nathan Latka
24:05Guys, semicab.com launched in 2018 is helping eight folks that need to pay truckers to ship their goods. He's helping them spend about a million dollars per month right now to access over 1,200 truckers on his platform. They aim to take somewhere between sort of 12 to 14% of that total million dollar volume. They processed their first truckload back in April last year, just eleven months ago. So really healthy growth rate. They raised their last equity round at 2,100,000
24:31at a 15,000,000 valuation, and then just raised this year or late last year, this year, 3,000,000, call it a seed round back on a convertible note at a 35,000,000 cap as we look to keep scaling up past 16 people. We'll see what happens. Ajesh, thanks for taking us to the top.
Ajesh Kapoor
24:45>> Thank you, Nathan. Thank you for having me.
Nathan Latka
24:49One more thing before you go. We have a brand new show every Thursday at 1PM Central. It's called Shark Tank for SaaS. We call it deal or bust. One founder comes on, three hungry buyers, they try and do a deal live and the founder shares back end dashboards, their expenses, their revenue, ARPU CAC, LTV, you name it, they share it and the buyers try and make a deal live. It is fun to watch every Thursday, 1PM
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