Case 04 · Freight
Today is your last day
Convoy marked a freight brokerage as a software company. Bezos and Gates on the cap table. $3.8 billion in April 2022. On 19 October 2023 Dan Lewis told the remaining staff the sentence. No severance. Options at zero. Two weeks later Flexport bought the stack and called the price modest.
2015–2023 · Shutdown · 19 Oct 2023 · 8 min · 6 Sep 2026
A take-rate business on a software multiple. When freight collapsed, the multiple had nowhere to sit.
Desk view
The file
- Founded
- 2015 · Dan Lewis, Grant Goodale. Seattle.
- Raised
- ~$1B · Bezos, Gates, Baillie Gifford, T. Rowe
- Peak mark
- $3.8B · April 2022, $260M round
- Staff
- ~1,500 at peak. ~500 on the last day.
- Last day
- 19 Oct 2023 · memo: today is your last day
- What sold
- 1 Nov 2023 · Flexport took the stack and ~50 people. Not the liabilities.
What broke
01 · The multiple
Convoy sold a network. What printed was a brokerage. When the 2022 mark cleared $3.8 billion, freight rates were still fat from the pandemic. A take-rate on trucking does not compound like a seat at a lab. The comments on the shutdown thread sat it: software multiples on a broker.
The cap table priced software. The P&L was freight.
02 · The winter
Lewis’s memo: a massive freight recession and a contraction in the capital markets. Four months of looking for a buyer. In-transit loads were walked to the door, then the lights went out. No severance. Stock worthless. Peak 1,500 down to 500, then to zero in a morning.
The cycle closed the book. The raise could not reopen it.
03 · What sold
Flexport took the technology and a small product bench. Ryan Petersen: purchase price relative to value is modest. Lewis went with the stack, later left. The network the $3.8 billion was supposed to be did not transfer. A modest asset sale is not a soft landing for the people who were told Thursday was the last day.
Flexport kept the code. The book went to zero.
Beats
2015
The desk
Lewis and Goodale start a digital freight network in Seattle. The pitch is empty miles and a cleaner load board.
2017–19
The names
Gates and Bezos write checks. Series that mark it as the anti-Uber-Freight. $2.7 billion by late 2019.
Apr 2022
The peak
CNBC later: $260 million at $3.8 billion. Baillie Gifford. JPMorgan line of credit. Freight rates are already turning.
2022–23
The cuts
GeekWire: layoffs in June 2022, October 2022, February 2023, June 2023. Goodale leaves June 2023.
18 Oct 2023
The loads
Shipments cancelled. The rumor is a transition. It is not.
19 Oct 2023
The memo
Lewis: we hoped this day would never come. Today is your last day at the company. Four months of options exhausted.
1 Nov 2023
The stack
Flexport buys the tech. Modest price. About fifty people. Not the liabilities.
X desk
It broke there first
Seaside Trader @csidetraderBreak
Convoy Inc, backed by Bezos and Gates, is closing down after a 4 month search for an acquirer failed. Dan Lewis to employees: today is your last day at the company.
20 Oct 2023
Forbes @ForbesSource · 34k views
Convoy—Trucking Startup Backed By Bezos And Gates—Shutting Down After Failing To Find Buyer.
19 Oct 2023
Sources
House
Sit the next issue. Print the chain.
A house underwrites one map — electrification, physical AI, the picks that do not trend until the assembler does.