New Brazilian unicorn to be Free Market for road transport, second founder

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Federico Vega, founder of the new Brazilian unicorn, wants to make Carrega.com the Free Market for road transport in Brazil. This means that in addition to connecting carriers and truck drivers, a service similar to the transport company Uber, it also offers financial services and assistance in digitizing customers.

Under the umbrella of the holding are the startups of the cargo transport sector CarregaBras, CargoX and CarregaPago, created in 2008, 2016 and 2021, respectively. The investments that took it to this level total US$ 200 million (R$ 1.14 billion) and were led by managers such as Softbank and Tencent, who also carried out their pricing.

The company’s idea began in Argentine Patagonia, where Vega was born. Riding a bicycle, I met truck drivers and noticed the problems in the sector. “We have a world that is outdated, because cargo and trucks are offline,” he says.

The idea

“Today, the truck driver is driving around and looking for cargo. Between 45% and 65% of the time, it is empty. We have to bring efficiency to the market by helping the carrier, which has the cargo, to find trucks online. Reducing the quantity truck driver’s idle time, he earns more and the transporter saves on costs, because it uses the idle capacity of the trucks.”

Expansion

“Once we did, we connected the two parts, we thought: the market has other problems. The truck driver is at risk of default, the carrier is at risk of cargo theft. We need to bring security, and we do this by intermediating payments within the platform and offering working capital to the truck driver, as if it were the Free Market.

Mercado Livre started by connecting sellers and buyers. We connect carriers that have loads with truck drivers by CarregaBras. After that, we thought: we have to offer financial intermediation and working capital, and so we created CarregaPago, a fintech that helps to mediate transactions. Then we created CargoX, which helps carriers enter the digital world. The Freight.com group has three companies.”

Scanning

“We work in an extremely fragmented market, we work with thousands of carriers and millions of truck drivers. Carriers have a very manual process to issue documentation, monitor the truck. With CargoX, we help digitize the operation, issue documentation, monitor the truck driver. “

Patagonia

“I was born in Argentine Patagonia. When I was 9 years old, I already traveled with a mountainbike association in the region. When we asked for water on the road, it was truck drivers who stopped. So I started to enter the world of trucks. Truck drivers embrace you. when do you arrive.

When I started to study a little more, and after having done a lot of cycling trips as an adult, I started to interact a lot with this world. At every truck driver station I arrived, a truck driver told me: that carrier is bad because it pays little for freight. And the carriers also said: look, the truck driver is very expensive and, when he picks up the load, he steals from me.

We have a world that is outdated because loads and trucks are offline. I started in Argetina and saw that the third largest truck market is Brazil and, in addition, it is in the center of Latin America. I realized that what happens today was going to start happening: trucks are starting to deliver cargo in Argentina and transport companies there want to hire Brazilian trucks to make the return trip.”

Impact of coronavirus on the sector

“The pandemic did the same thing in the world of trucks as it did with ecommerce and food delivery. In a pandemic, you can no longer physically go to the service station [para encontrar clientes], and the truck driver and carrier needed a place to meet in the virtual world. So we started to grow very fast and investors saw an opportunity. We now have 1,300 employees and we are going to hire 3,500 by the end of 2022.”

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