Breakthrough Transportation Logistics Startup Loop Announces $35 Million Series B

October 03, 2023 at 09:00 AM EDT

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Built by former Uber and Flexport engineers, Loop unlocks capital trapped in the supply chain

Loop, a modern audit & payment platform for the next-gen supply chain, announced it has raised a $35 million Series B, co-led by J.P. Morgan Growth Equity Partners and Index Ventures. Loop is used by global shippers including Great Dane, GILLIG, and JPMorgan Chase; and logistics service providers including Convoy and Loadsmart.

“As geopolitics radically reshapes the global supply chain and consumers bear the brunt of inflation, legacy financial infrastructure is driving up costs at a critical time for the economy,” said Matt McKinney, CEO and co-founder of Loop. “We founded Loop to solve this massive problem, and this fundraise is a testament to Loop’s ability to cut costs and power profits for our customers. We’re thrilled to have the additional support of J.P. Morgan Growth Equity Partners and Index to continue building the future of the modern supply chain.”

Transportation and logistics represent more than 8% of global GDP, but throughout this movement of global goods and services, outdated systems leave millions of dollars trapped. Legacy firms still rely on manual processes where important shipping documents like invoices, bills of lading and delivery receipts are recorded by hand and poorly audited. This results in no single “source of truth” for what and when firms should pay; on average, 20% of freight invoices have rate errors, which in turn increase costs. Loop’s infrastructure and robust data platform give customers full visibility into costs — but also unlocks savings. Loop’s AI delivers insights into the impact of everything from linking disparate documents to root-cause of discrepancies to contract renegotiations.

“Loop transformed the way we do business, enabling us to capture data and utilize it for better insights on decision making from how we allocate transportation spend to negotiating carrier contracts–they identified 6% in transportation savings for us,” said Chuck O’Brien, VP of Aftermarket Parts at GILLIG, the leading manufacturer of heavy-duty transit buses in the United States. “With Loop, we went from a gut checking 30% of our invoices and manually auditing them to being fully automated.”

Loop was founded in 2021, at the height of the disruption of the global supply chain by the COVID-19 pandemic, to unlock margin and increase liquidity. With an AI-driven platform that consolidates and analyzes all transportation financial data, Loop accelerates the movement of money between shippers, carriers, and brokers by:

Improving cost visibility: Shows true spend to reduce financial risk and operating expenses
Cutting unnecessary spend: Automates audit and pay process to improve accuracy and increase working capital
Optimizing transportation budgets: Uncovers strategic opportunities to enhance network operations, renegotiate with confidence, and maximize margins

“Loop’s value proposition is clear, with an expanding customer base and over $3 billion in booked total payment volume year to date. From material demands to the current state of the macro environment, this modern financial infrastructure is vital for businesses that are rearchitecting their supply chains,” said Luke Sikora, Partner at J.P. Morgan Growth Equity Partners. “We’re pleased to have invested in Loop, and are looking forward to supporting the company as they harness the power of AI to address tangible issues impacting the global economy.”

“Loop's infrastructure is poised to transform the way money moves through the supply chain. In just a few years they have brought better efficiency not only to their large shipper customers, but also to the broader supply chain ecosystem. Ultimately, we invest in people, and we've been impressed by the strength of Matt and Shu's vision and compelling founder-market-fit for some time. We're excited to partner with them on this journey,” said Mark Fiorentino, Partner at Index Ventures.

ABOUT LOOP

Loop’s AI-based approach to managing transportation audit & pay upgrades the modern supply chain with a platform that enables hyper-efficiency, improves cost control, and yields better outcomes with enhanced analytics. Loop's AI thrives on the complexity of supply chain data and documentation– a superpower that helps logistics companies bypass the tedious processes of digital transformation and move directly to workflow automation. Precision audits, seamless dispute resolution, and tailored insights deliver exceptional results for customers. Loop was founded by Matt McKinney and Shaosu Liu, who drew upon their backgrounds at Uber Freight to tackle the massive problem of building a new structure for the legacy freight payment system that supports the global supply chain.

Learn more at https://loop.com/

ABOUT J.P. MORGAN GROWTH EQUITY PARTNERS AND J.P. MORGAN GLOBAL ALTERNATIVES

J.P. Morgan Growth Equity Partners (“GEP”) manages a $1B growth equity fund partnering with leading enterprise software, fintech, real estate technology and consumer companies. GEP’s capital is a combination of the firm’s balance sheet alongside a broad set of institutions, family offices and individual investors.

GEP is the technology focused late-stage venture and growth equity investment arm of J.P. Morgan Private Capital. J.P. Morgan Private Capital, which is part of J.P. Morgan Global Alternatives – the alternative investment arm of J.P. Morgan Asset Management, provides customized financing solutions for private companies across the capital structure. J.P. Morgan Global Alternatives has more than 50 years as an alternatives investment manager, $213 billion in assets under management, and more than 800 professionals (as of June 30, 2023).

ABOUT INDEX VENTURES

Index Ventures is a venture capital firm investing in the next generation of entrepreneurs from seed to IPO. With offices in San Francisco, New York and London, we back entrepreneurs all over the world. Generational Index-backed companies include Adyen, Datadog, Discord, Figma, Roblox and Wiz.