CargoX, a Brazil-based trucking services provider backed by mobile semiconductor producer Qualcomm, has picked up $80m in a series E round led by private equity investment platform LGT Lightstone, Reuters has reported.
Investment bank Goldman Sachs’ Growth Equity division also contributed to the round along with Valor Capital, Farallon Capital and unnamed additional investors, according to Bloomberg. LGT Lighthouse is part of Liechtenstein royal family-owned private banking and asset management group LGT.
CargoX operates an online logistics marketplace that uses machine learning and big data technology to match companies with truck drivers who have excess capacity, increasing the efficiency of each trip and reducing the number of empty return journeys.
The platform currently makes use of a network of 400,000 drivers and serves some 20,000 buinesses. CargoX hopes to double the number of drivers this year to cope with increased demand for ground shipments amid the Covid-19 pandemic.
The funding will also support the implementation of contactless operations by CargoX within supply chains through digitisation and process automation. It unveiled a R$30m ($5.9m) working capital fund last month to help companies pay drivers for shipments of essential items like food, medicines and hygiene products.
CargoX had previously raised a total of $96m in funding according to Reuters. Blackstone led its $60m series D round in 2018, investing with Qualcomm Ventures, the corporate venturing arm of Qualcomm, as well as Goldman Sachs, Soros Fund Management and Oscar Salazar, a co-founder of ride hailing service Uber.
Goldman Sachs led CargoX’s $20m series C round in 2017, with contributions from Qualcomm Ventures, logistics services provider Ability Logistics, Valor Capital, Soros Fund Management and Salazar.
Ability Logistics had already participated in a $10m series B round in July 2016 that was also backed by Goldman Sachs, Valor Capital, Lumia Capital, Salazar and Hans Hickler. Valor had led the company’s $4m series A round six months earlier.
CargoX is unrelated to the Slovenia-based company of the same name, which has created blockchain technology to process bills of landing, a legal document required to load a container onto a cargo ship.
