LA Startup Grabs $10M to Build Out Fully Automated Freight Cross-Dock

Yahoo

7 hours ago

This tech-first, middle-mile logistics startup wants to warp the way freight is carried today.
Los Angeles-based Warp announced earlier this month it had raised a $10 million Series A round, led by Up.Partners and Blue Bear Capital. The startup, founded in 2021, had previously raised $12 million.
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The company uses AI to dynamically optimize freight routing and pricing; its technology works to match shipments with fast, lower-cost transport for the middle mile. It uses software and artificial intelligence-based systems, but it also employs physical technology in the form of robots.
Daniel Sokolovsky, co-founder and CEO of Warp, said Warp will not use the funds to exponentially increase its headcount; it has plans to hire just 10 more full-time employees. Sokolovsky contends that agentic AI will enable a limited number of people to run the company at scale. The idea, Warp contends, is to create 'a freight infrastructure that runs itself.'
'This round isn't about growing a team. It is about multiplying output,' Sokolovsky said in a statement. 'We are scaling with intelligent agents that make our amazing people a thousand times more productive.'
Instead, Sokolovsky and team plan to use their newly raised capital to expand the AI systems that underlay Warp's capabilities—and to launch a fully robotic cross-dock. That means that the cross-dock, which is typically used to quickly transfer goods between trucks, will be fully automated; robots will receive, analyze and send out parcels and pallets delivered to the location. While Warp has a network of 50 cross-docks and more than 10,000 vehicles, this marks the first robot-native site for the company.
The company plans to link its new facility into its existing network, enabling it with already established AI capabilities, like routing, scheduling, parcel and pallet visibility and more. Warp contends that the new facility will enable faster, more efficient outcomes for clients—and its investors seem to agree. Ally Warson, partner at Up.Partners, said the firm believes Warp's vision and technology will help plug existing gaps and inefficiencies in the freight space.
'Warp's approach doesn't just optimize freight. It redefines it. They're targeting the root causes of middle-mile inefficiency: labor dependency, lack of visibility, and brittle networks,' Warson said in a statement. 'Their agent- and automation-first approach is the future of supply chain infrastructure.'
According to its site, Warp boasts a variety of customers, including Walmart, Veho, Aritzia, Kith and Doordash. Per its site, the company helped an unnamed apparel retailer cut costs by 27 percent and improve delivery time by 20 percent. Warp primarily services retail clients by offering the ability to consolidate shipments into one delivery; delivering items from a shipment to several stores or warehouses by using shared routes; moving inventory via cross-docking and more.
Troy Lester, co-founder and chief revenue officer at Warp, said refining the technology behind Warp will help the company enable repeat positive experiences for customers.
'Shippers don't want freight. They want outcomes, guaranteed every time,' Lester said in a statement. 'Warp is building the only freight network that connects AI, robotics, and transportation to give them exactly what they want. In a volatile world, we are engineering certainty. Always the best rate. Always perfect service. Soon, that won't be a promise. It will be standard.'
Warp is far from the only company trying to redefine logistics and freight moving with AI systems. Some of the industry's biggest players have invested serious capital and manpower into doing so; Flexport has promised a major technology release twice annually, and companies like DHL have inked robotics partnerships aimed at creating the warehouse or fulfillment center of the future. Meanwhile, other startups, like Mothership—which uses AI to link companies with last-minute less-than-truckload (LTL) options at low rates—have also looked to disrupt the logistics game with emerging technologies.
Still, investors seem intrigued by Warp's ability to tie together multiple processes, rather than touting improvements for just one piece of the logistics puzzle. Vaughn Blake, partner at Blue Bear Capital, said the startup's technology has the potential to uproot the status quo for the logistics industry.
'Warp is solving a deeply physical problem with true software discipline,' Blake said in a statement. 'This is full-stack automation, not just digital wrappers on legacy processes. They are bringing modern systems thinking to freight in a way the industry hasn't seen before.'