Bill Gates backs Uber freight rival, joining other billionaires

SEATTLE: As Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos jockey for the designation of world’s wealthiest man, the Seattle billionaires are united behind at least one local venture. They’re both investors in a trucking logistics startup that competes with Uber Technologies Inc.

Convoy Inc, a two-year-old Seattle company, makes software that matches nearby and available truckers to a shipping job. Convoy said it raised a new round of funding from Gates’s Cascade Investment and other backers. Gates joins Amazon.com Inc’s Bezos, who invested earlier. The latest financing totals US$62mil.

The investment won’t break the bank for Gates or Bezos, whose fortunes are within US$3bil of each other, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

But Convoy has become a hot startup investment among fellow billionaires. Salesforce.com Inc chief executive officer Marc Benioff and KKR & Co co-CEO Henry Kravis are also shareholders. IAC/ InterActiveCorp chairman Barry Diller participated in the new round with Gates.

Convoy was initially pitched as an “Uber for trucking” and has raised US$80mil in total since starting in 2015.

But this year, Uber rolled out its own version of on-demand trucking. The service, called Uber Freight, connects truck drivers with longhaul assignments.

There are other providers, such as Trucker Path, but Uber’s financial heft – having raised more than US$15bil since its inception-makes it a force.

That’s despite distractions posed by a lawsuit claiming a former Uber executive, who was working on autonomous trucking technology, conspired with the company to steal trade secrets from Alphabet Inc’s Waymo. Uber denies wrongdoing.