DriverReach Secures $7.5M Investment
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An Indianapolis-based tech company has closed on a $7.5 million investment round led by Fulcrum Equity Partners, a growth equity fund headquartered in Atlanta. DriverReach, which has developed a recruiting and compliance management platform for the trucking industry, says it plans to use the funding to fuel product development and add up to 60 jobs over the next three years. “It’s pouring some serious gasoline on the fire,” said DriverReach Chief Executive Officer Jeremy Reymer.
In an interview with Inside INdiana Business, Reymer says the funding will allow the company to help trucking firms meet a serious demand for CDL truck drivers that was exacerbated by the pandemic.
“A lot of truck drivers were moved to the sidelines, left the industry [or] retired. It’s naturally an aging workforce anyway, certainly older than the average industry workforce,” said Reymer. “And the number of new entrants into the industry was curbed, so you didn’t have the new entrants replacing so many more people who were leaving and so, it was being sort of squeezed at both ends.”
DriverReach not only aims to help trucking companies recruit drivers more efficiently, but it also seeks to help keep them in compliance in a heavily-regulated industry.
The platform tracks applicants looking to find a job in the industry. It also maintains qualification files for current drivers to ensure compliance with regulations. Additionally, Reymer says the platform helps companies manage the previous employment history of drivers who no longer work for them, which is another regulatory requirement.
Reymer says the pandemic created a greater need for a digital system among trucking employers.
“What the industry realized, especially as most of us shut down in March, April and parts of May in 2020, if they didn’t leverage technology to help manage all of their driver hiring and all of their compliance management, they were in a really hard spot,” he said. “They couldn’t manage that remotely. And so, frankly, the pandemic really accelerated the growth and adoption of technology to solve for this big problem that everyone has.”
Reymer says DriverReach plans to add it its development team to further grow the platform, as well as add more sales positions.
Looking long-term, Reymer says there are merger and acquisition opportunities with companies that encompass the driver life cycle he says will provide additional value to DriverReach’s customers.
“We are seeing massive growth in transportation, logistics, and trucking due to the explosion of eCommerce. This means our investment in DriverReach is an opportunity to help fill the driver pipeline. A better applicant experience will streamline the process of qualifying drivers and dramatically improve speed-to-hire,” Scott Dorfman, venture partner for Fulcrum, said in a news release. “This increased demand for drivers means logistics companies must be able to recruit, onboard, and manage drivers via non-traditional avenues.”
The funding round included participation from CreativeCo Capital, a venture capital and growth equity firm in North Carolina.