Delivery Services

Roadie’s Road to Profitability in Crowdsourced Shipping

Americans who like to take road trips could be making extra money off the empty space in their cars. Roadie is counting on building interest in this form of crowdsourced delivery.  Roadie launched their peer to peer shipping platform in 2015. And unlike most other social shipping startups, Roadie secured a lot of funding. When I wrote about them in 2015, Roadie’s initial funding was $10 million. They partnered with the Waffle House to give drivers free food, and with rapper Ludacris to expand their advertising reach.

Now, two years later, Roadie has raised a total of $25 million in funding. The last round was in the middle of 2016. Based on that timing I’d say they are poised for another funding round this year.

Roadie claims 50,000 pre-screened drivers across 50 states. This screening happens when you sign up to be a driver, it doesn’t necessarily mean all these drivers are actively making deliveries. But they claim deliveries to more than 4000 cities, which is an impressive footprint for a company not yet 3 years old. And Roadie has introduced an Enterprise product, marketing their services to businesses. This is probably a smart direction for the business to move for greater revenue. Deliveries for people needing stuff moved from point A to point B are generally just one time deals. And this means a lot of recruiting new customers. Businesses, on the other hand, have a constant need to move merchandise.

It seems unlikely Roadie will hit profitability any time soon. But their expansion and business direction is the strongest of any of the crowdsourced delivery companies I’ve seen. On the other hand, they had a flurry of good press in the first two years but I haven’t heard much from Roadie in the past year.

Regardless, if you’re a regular road tripper in the United States, you might want to sign up with Roadie. Take advantage of your empty trunk space and earn some extra cash.