Logistics technology startup Baton raises $10.5m Series A funding

Baton, a logistics technology platform developed out of 8VC's acclaimed Build program, announced its $10.5 million Series A funding, co-led by 8VC and Maersk Growth, the corporate venture arm of AP Moller-Maersk, the global leader in transportation and logistics.

Baton both paves the way for the adoption of autonomous vehicles in trucking and solves the largest and most well-known problem in the industry: the over two billion hours lost annually due to dwell and detention.

Baton's technology platform enables long-haul truckers to drop off and pick up loads at Baton drop zones in major metro areas, and then a network of local fleets does the first and final mile of delivery to warehouses. This completely eliminates the wasted hours associated with detention, in-transit dwell and inter-appointment dwell for long-haul trucks.

Additionally, it increases wages for drivers, reduces carbon emissions and, furthermore, enables highway-only autonomous trucks to hand off loads to human drivers for the first and final mile. Baton sub-leases these 24/7 drop zones and provides the software to seamlessly coordinate vehicles, drop-zones, warehouses and local drivers through a single API.

Nate Robert, Co-founder, Baton: "We're excited to bring cutting-edge technology to one of the biggest problems in transportation. We have the opportunity to fundamentally change how long-haul trucking works by bifurcating routes into a highway-only segment and a local segment, enabling trucking companies to increase efficiency, improve profit margins and increase driver miles and wages."

Andrew Berberick, Co-founder, Baton: "In the future, Baton's platform will make it possible for highway-only autonomous trucks to hand off their loads to human-driven electric trucks in the city, who can then drive at off-peak hours for the greatest efficiency. None of this would be possible at scale without the world class optimization engine that underlies Baton's core operation, monitoring and coordinating a host of loads and appointment windows concurrently." 

Baton currently operates in Los Angeles and plans to use this Series A funding to hire more engineers and service additional major cities across the country, including Atlanta, Chicago and Dallas in the next 12 to 18 months.  

Jake Medwell, Partner and Co-founder, 8VC: "I am excited to see the growth of their engineering team and expansion into new cities across the country. The adoption of autonomy will also drive home the long-term value proposition. As we see automated and eventually electric trucks become standard for certain routes, the network of Baton hubs and the coordination provided by its software will become seen as core infrastructure. Baton makes the transformation to automated trucking possible."

Jeppe Hoier, Partner, Maersk Growth: "We are proud about investing in the Baton Team.  Baton is a great addition to our Maersk Growth portfolio supporting our mission to democratize the supply chain. The Baton solution addresses major inefficiencies in haulage dwell and detention to the benefit of all players in the ecosystem.  We look forward to partnering with them on their exciting drop and hook technology and facilitating more sustainable last mile services."

8VC and Maersk Growth were joined in this round by add on from Prologis Ventures, the corporate venture capital arm of Prologis, the world’s leader in logistics real estate solutions; RyderVentures, the corporate venture capital arm of Ryder System, Inc., one of the largest logistics and transportation companies in North America; Lineage Logistics; Jett McCandless, CEO of Project44; Shoaib Makani, CEO of KeepTruckin; John Larkin, Operating Partner at Clarendon Capital; Trace Haggard, Founder of I.S.G.; and Cooley LLC.

Baton is headquartered in San Francisco with its operations office in Chicago.  It was founded in October 2019 by Nate Robert and Andrew Berberick out of 8VC's Build Program. 

www.baton.io