daimler continues m&a spree

Hi there,

Last Friday, Flirtey completed the first FAA-approved autonomous drone delivery to a customer’s residence, ferrying sandwiches and Slurpees from a 7-Eleven in Nevada.

We’ve written about Flirtey and other drone startups taking on the challenges of last mile delivery. But companies have also seen opportunities to cut costs and optimize efficiency across the value chain of logistics giants like FedEx.

Some of the companies doing this are recognized brands like Uber and Shyp providing on-demand delivery services. But as on-demand funding pulls back outside of the most well-capitalized companies, startups offering heavier freight services have seen a number of financings, including full truckload (FTL) freight brokerage Transfix just this week.

To visualize the diversity within the shipping and logistics space, we mapped out a host of US-based logistics companies unbundling FedEx and UPS.

Tech for the long haul

Startups have also zeroed in commercial trucking itself, applying connected vehicle technology to improve fleet management and analytics platforms to increase routing efficiency.

Following GTCR’s Lytx acquisition in February and Verizon’s Telogis purchase last month, we profiled 10 companies working to transform the trucking industry.

Have a great rest of the week, everybody.

Kerry
@kerrygwu