AUSTIN, Texas – March 4, 2014 – The day was Friday, March 5, 2004. At a downtown Austin pub-turned-startup-headquarters, Matt Chasen, Jay Manickam and Mickey Millsap huddled over a laptop, thrilled at what they just saw happen.
uShip.com, the online shipping marketplace the trio launched 12 days earlier (and honed for two years prior), had just secured its first “match” – a shipping customer and transporter connected with each other through the site over an upcoming household move. Match price: $900. uShip’s cut (and first revenue): $71.
Marketplaces existed in other industries, but uShip was shipping’s first online marketplace and pioneer in collaborative consumption, designed to bring greater efficiency and transparency to a freight industry that largely lacked it. While much has changed over the last decade, uShip’s drive for efficiency hasn’t – and it’s working.
Since 2004, uShip has facilitated $500M in shipping transactions for over 500,000 service providers worldwide. Over 2.5 million customers have posted 3.5 million listings. Localized in 19 countries on six continents and with 180 employees, uShip has raised $28M in venture funding. It’s also featured on A&E reality series “Shipping Wars” that reaches nearly two million people per episode in the U.S. and is syndicated globally.
“We’ve come a long way since running the business out of various coffee shops with free wi-fi around Austin,” said Chasen, uShip’s CEO and founder. “What’s most fulfilling is the part we’ve played in shaping a shared economy landscape by saving people money on shipping costs and helping thousands of transporters make a living. Looking ahead, mobile technology will take our business to the next level, as will a more concentrated focus on repeat businesses shippers that’s growing at 50 percent a month.”
About uShip
uShip is the global transport marketplace that’s reinventing the traditional logistics process. By moving it entirely online and to mobile devices, it brings greater automation, transparency and efficiency to the traditionally inefficient shipping industry. Primarily serving the commercial freight, vehicles, and household goods markets, the uShip freight exchange seamlessly connects shipping customers – from freight brokers to business shippers and consumers – with feedback-rated transportation service providers that engage in online fixed price, spot market and auction-based transactions. Based in Austin, Texas, and Amsterdam, the company operates globally with localized sites in 19 countries and regions on six continents. It is backed by Benchmark Capital, DAG Ventures and Kleiner Perkins Caufield Byers, and is featured on “Shipping Wars,” the real-life television series broadcast worldwide. http://www.uship.com
