Cargado, the first ever cross-border freight marketplace and load board for U.S.-Mexico freight, announced a $12 million Series A funding round led by venture capital firm LGVP.
Cargado CEO Matt Silver said the funding will be used to expand the platform.
“It’s all about building the product and building the network,” Silver told FreightWaves in an interview. “Everybody loves the product. There’s a lot that customers want from us; now that they’re using the product, they ask for more things and more features.”
Silver co-founded the company in January 2024 with Chief Technology Officer Rylan Hawkins. The pair started Cargado without revealing specifically how it would operate in the cross-border space.
In September, Silver and Hawkins finally unveiled the platform, a first-of-its-kind, invite-only load board for freight moving between Mexico and the U.S.
Customers are able to use Cargado to book freight faster and more transparently, according to company officials, because the entire negotiation takes place on the platform.
Cargado’s platform has more than 200 customers, including brokers, 3PLs and freight forwarders, that post cross-border freight to get bids from more than 650 cross-border trucking companies.
Silver said the Series A funding will help Cargado provide more services.
“As brokers and carriers get more and more used to using a new, more modern load board or marketplace, they get more excited about it,” he said. “They ask for more things. They ask for better views of data. They want to be able to see and do more with the product. We’re excited to be able to support that. It already works in multiple languages and multiple currencies. Being able to support the scale piece of it is really just about investing in our product and engineering team, investing in our tech and every other part of our business.”
Cargado has 42 employees, including staff in key border cities such as Laredo and El Paso, Texas, and San Diego.
“By the end of this year, we’re going to be known as more than just a load board,” Silver said. “The future of Cargado is it’s a collaboration platform for cross-border freight. Freight brokers and trucking companies will be able to do a lot more than just posting, bidding, negotiating on freight. This becomes more than a load board at that point, and we become ideally known as more than just a load board and more of a tool that people continue to enjoy, but that they can do well beyond just just booking freight the traditional way.”
