Northwestern Spinout FourKites Gets $1.3 Million
Featured on Crain’s Chicago Business
FourKites, a logistics startup launched by a Northwestern University MBA student, has hauled in $1.3 million in funding.
Backers include Hyde Park Venture Partners, Hyde Park Angels, Harvard Business School Angels and two family offices, Chicago-based Bluestein & Associates and Miami-based Otter Consulting.
The Chicago-based company’s software allows commercial shipping customers to track their freight in real time, using GPS devices that already are on more than 50 percent of all trucks. Federal law that requires all trucks to have electronic-logging devices within two years should accelerate its growth, says CEO Mathew Elenjickal.
FourKites was founded two years ago by Elenjickal, who previously worked as a consultant in logistics for a software provider, and Arun Chandrasekaran. Companies that ship their goods by truck, as well as outsourced logistics providers and freight brokers, pay thousands of dollars a month to use FourKites’ software.
“Once a truck leaves dock, shippers have no idea what’s happening,” Elenjickal said.
PLANS TO DOUBLE STAFF
He was a student at Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management when he won a business-plan competition and received $22,500 from the Pritzker Group Venture Fellows program. The company has doubled to 10 people in the past year, and Elenjickal plans to double headcount again this year.
FourKites is the latest data-related investment by Hyde Park Venture Partners. It also invested in FarmLogs, an Ann Arbor, Mich.-based company that uses data from farm equipment to help farmers improve production.
“This is an (Internet of Things) play in a massive market, trucking transportation, that surprisingly still has fundamental needs that have not been met,” said Ira Weiss, a partner at the Chicago-based fund. “Large manufacturers literally do not know where their shipments are during transit.”