Freight Hero, a Durham, North Carolina, startup that runs freight brokers’ back-office operations outright, has raised $5 million in a seed round led by Field Ventures.
Flybridge Capital, Tip Top VC and Front Porch Venture Partners also participated, bringing the company’s total funding past $6 million
The company is selling brokers something different from software. Freight Hero charges a flat fee per load and takes over each shipment from rate confirmation through proof of delivery, working inside the broker’s existing systems. AI agents handle more than 90% of customer load touches.
A team of human operators, which the company calls Heroes, picks up the exceptions. The pitch lands in a brokerage market with thin margins and no appetite for another implementation. Roughly 41% of brokers are adding AI or machine learning tools to lift productivity, according to a Truckstop.com and Bloomberg Intelligence survey of 187 brokerage professionals, while 48% are not.