Optimus acquires SmartHop, will give freight software away for free
What's the deal? Optimus TechnologyDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → has acquired SmartHop's load and fleet management platform and plans to distribute it to small and midsize carriers at no cost, the Austin, Texas-based company announced Monday. Deal terms were not disclosed.
What each side brings: SmartHop, led by co-founder and CEO Guillermo Garcia, raised $16.5 million through a Series A round in February 2021 and built dispatch software that Optimus founder and CEO Ed Stockman called "a hell of a product that got great reviews from the carrier community." Optimus will repackage it as a white-label developer kit that drops into apps carriers already use.
What's the endgame? In exchange for the free tool, Optimus captures shipment activity. "All of that data runs through our pipes and helps build the simulations for the physical economy," Stockman said in an interview with FreightWaves.
That data feeds the Freight Intelligence Graph, a digital twin of the US freight network that Optimus previewed in August. The model aims to show how disruptions and structural changes affect freight flows; Stockman said SmartHop "ties in carrier transactions that we wouldn't otherwise have," especially from budget-constrained small and midsize fleets.
Why now? Optimus plans to distribute SmartHop through financial, insurance, and logistics partners that together reach tens of thousands of trucking companies. Platforms run by those partners see more than 40,000 weekly active users, according to Optimus, and all have evaluated building or buying digital dispatch tools to get "stickier" with carriers.
Who pays? Brokers do. Optimus' software runs against a broker's transportation management system, identifies its strengths, and returns a target list of shippers with contact names, emails, and a sales pitch. Stockman said it gives brokers "all the answers to the test" and has generated tens of millions of dollars in new gross revenue for customers.
Stockman said the rates and identities on individual loads are not the goal. "The rates negotiated on individual loads and the identities of the parties doing business with one another are not the purpose of this effort and in many cases, are redacted from our models," he said.
The signal: Optimus is betting that free, white-label tools can buy the data that premium freight modeling demands. With its network covering a substantial portion of the US full truckload market and months from critical mass, the SmartHop deal is a play to fill the gap left by small carriers that resist paying for software at all.
Read more: finance.yahoo.com
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