Container logistics startup Qualle announced Monday it has raised $1.5 million in pre-seed funding led by Filipski Group with participation from supply chain investor Plug and Play Tech Center and Lynett Capital to improve the usage of containers at U.S. and Canadian ports.
Qualle’s focus is on keeping containers loaded with goods. Finding reload opportunities before containers are returned to ports enables drayage carriers to make more revenue and build more container capacity for exporters.
Related: Plug and Play raises $25.5M for new supply chain fund
It also reduces drayage movements’ carbon footprint. According to Qualle, identifying street turn opportunities can eliminate up to 34.86% of the miles the container traditionally moves.
Users of Qualle’s platform can monitor their containers’ cycles while also connecting them to a marketplace of soon-to-be-available drivers with containers looking for these quick, street turn opportunities.
“Qualle’s marketplace provides a centralized platform for truckers to exchange empties with fellow truckers, it eliminates the traditional blast emails or group messages and creates visibility and records of all actions,” said Lisa Wan, the director of operations for Roadex America, in a news release. “The Qualle team continues to improve on their platform to allow truckers to do street turns as easily as just clicking a few buttons. We foresee Qualle’s marketplace will be a future solution for easy street turns and exchanges for all truckers and exporters.”
Watch now: Drayage Challenges and Opportunities At America’s West Coast Ports
To secure this marketplace, Qualle has partnered with ocean carriers, like strategic partner Maersk, Hamburg Sud, OOCL, Yang Ming, Wan Hai Lines LTD, COSCO and ZIM. The company’s solution serves ports including Los Angeles and Long Beach, California; New York and New Jersey; Savannah, Georgia; Houston; and Memphis, Tennessee.
With the new capital and supply chain-focused investors, Tyler Sellers, Qualle’s founder and chief executive officer, looks forward to expanding his team to continue building truck capacity and software capabilities, enabling Qualle to grow its operations to all U.S. and Canadian ports by the end of the year. This will include adding roles in engineering, design, customer support, legal and marketing.
“This funding will and has allowed us to accelerate our mission to revolutionize the way empty containers are looked at and used within the drayage space,” said Sellers. “Our goal is to get empty containers out of the hands of those who do not need them and into the hands of those who do, and so far it’s working.”
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