Transportation software startup Rose Rocket Inc. today announced that it has closed a $38 million funding round led by Scale Venture Partners.

The round, a Series B investment, also included the participation of Y Combinator and several other institutional backers. It follows a $25 million raise that Rose Rocket announced in October 2021. According to the startup, the number of logistics companies and other organizations in its business ecosystem grew by a factor of 47 between the two rounds.

Toronto-based Rose Rocket provides a so-called transportation management system, or TMS, of the same name. A TMS is an application that trucking companies use to process freight shipping requests from customers. Rose Rocket’s TMS also promises to simplify a number of other tasks, such as delivery fleet management. 

The startup’s platform enables trucking companies to create a web-based portal for each customer. In the portal, the customer can place orders on a self-service basis, which reduces manual work for logistics teams. Rose Rocket’s platform also automates the task of generating a quote after an order has been placed.

Once a shipment is underway, Rose Rocket’s customer portal displays a map that tracks the current location of the merchandise and provides related information. Logistics companies also use the portal to manually share shipping updates. A company could, for example, alert a retailer if a truck is expected to arrive at its warehouse sooner than expected. 

Besides easing customer management tasks, Rose Rocket also promises to streamline other aspects of logistics companies’ operations. Its platform provides a mobile app through which dispatchers can send shipping data to truck drivers. Additionally, the company offers a set of features focused on reducing the need to manually copy data between backoffice business applications.

Companies with advanced requirements can customize certain parts of Rose Rocket’s platform. According to the company, its platform provides the ability to create custom software workflows for speeding up manual tasks. Logistics team can create workflows through a no-code interface that doesn’t require programming expertise to use. 

“Within the massive transportation and logistics industry, the mid-market and enterprise operate with highly custom workflows, and no two companies are the same,” said Scale Venture Partners General Partner Alex Niehenke. “The TMS that wins in this space must be able to accommodate for changes in how companies work.”

Rose Rocket told TechCrunch that its customer base comprises more than 1,000 companies. It reportedly expects to achieve $100 million in annual revenue within three years if it sustains its current growth rate.

To reach that goal, Rose Rocket will use its newly raised capital to enhance its platform’s feature set. It also plans to accelerate customer acquisition initiatives. As part of the effort, it will work to expand adoption of its platform among enterprises with large truck fleets.

Image: Rose Rocket