Vooma Scores Over $16 Million in Seed and Series A Funding Led by Index and Craft Ventures

SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Dec 2, 2024--

Vooma, a powerful and fast-growing AI platform designed for freight brokers and carriers of all sizes, today announced it secured $13 million in Series A funding led by Craft Ventures. The Series A adds to a previous $3.6 million seed round led by Index Ventures with participation from angel investors including founders and executives from major logistics and technology companies such as Motive, Project44, Ryder and Uber Freight. The investments in Vooma, driven by strong customer demand, underscore the company’s market potential and technology, and accelerate its trajectory for continuing growth.

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Vooma’s AI platform empowers logistics companies to more rapidly and efficiently scale their operations by reducing time spent on tedious and manual work and creating space to solve real logistical challenges, while also investing in relationships that are critical to success. The company has built Vooma Agents, the first-of-its-kind multi-channel AI platform for logistics. Agents built on Vooma’s platform can operate across email, text and voice channels, allowing for automation in workflows that were previously unaddressable by existing systems.

Since its launch in 2023, Vooma has attracted many of the logistics industry’s top brokers and carriers as customers, including Echo, MODE, Arrive Logistics and NFI. Vooma has grown revenue by 12.5x, increased transaction volume by over 32x and built hundreds of thousands of loads. The company is also partnering with leading communication, pricing and transportation management systems including Front, Greenscreens.ai, McLeod and Turvo.

Vooma’s new funding will be invested towards growing the team across engineering, go-to-market and customer success to support mounting demand for products powered by Vooma Agents:

“Relationships are critical for our company’s success,” said Jack Twyman, Chief Customer and Digital Officer at MoLo Solutions, a top-15 freight broker. “Vooma’s platform effectively integrates with our systems and allows our team and our customers to gain efficiency, without changing how we do business. We can offload rote tasks to stay focused on customer service and work that requires the human touch so we can keep building meaningful relationships to drive our business forward.”

Vooma was founded by two logistics and technology experts — Jesse Buckingham, former CEO of ASG LogisTech, and Mike Carter, former employee #2 and founding engineer at Kodiak Robotics — who have built a strong team of talent with deep industry experience. The company is dedicated to delivering powerful and reliable AI solutions designed to empower the entire logistics workforce.

“The United States moves approximately 11.5 billion tons of truckloads annually, and moving freight from point A to B requires hundreds of touchpoints between shippers, brokers and carriers,” noted Buckingham. “By introducing AI that fits naturally into existing systems, workflows and communication channels used across the industry, we are meaningfully reducing the tasks people dislike and freeing up their time and headspace for more meaningful and complex challenges.”

“We are at an inflection point where cross-channel digital agents powered by AI and LLMs will transform the way we work,” added Carter. “Vooma’s cross-channel agent is delivering against AI’s immense potential for the logistics industry.”

“Transportation is the backbone of the U.S. economy,” said Lainy Painter Singh, Partner at Craft Ventures. “The Vooma team has a deep understanding of the end market and appreciation for the complexity of its systems. We believe the company will not only delight customers with AI solutions that make their businesses more efficient, but help solve the industry’s most pressing challenges.”

Additional investors in Vooma’s Series A include Definition Capital, HOF Capital, Soma Capital, Operator Stack Fund and Index Ventures.

About Vooma

Vooma is the AI agent for logistics. Vooma takes care of tedious work for brokers and carriers so they can focus on winning freight, serving customers and building relationships that grow their businesses. Learn more at vooma.com and explore exciting opportunities to join our team here.

Vooma founders Jesse Buckingham (left) and Mike Carter (right). (Photo: Business Wire)

SAO PAULO (AP) — Former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro is undergoing double hernia surgery on Thursday at a hospital in the country's capital, his family said.

Bolsonaro, who has been hospitalized since Wednesday, has been serving a 27-year prison sentence since November for an attempted coup.

He was granted court permission to leave prison after federal police doctors confirmed that he needed the procedure. The surgery in Brasilia is expected to last about four hours, the DF Star hospital medical team said in a statement Wednesday.

Doctors say Bolsonaro's double hernia causes him pain. The former leader, who was in power between 2019 and 2022, has gone through several other surgeries since he was stabbed in the abdomen during a campaign rally in 2018.

Justice Alexandre de Moraes, who oversaw Bolsonaro’s coup trial and sentenced him to prison, authorized the procedure, but denied the former president’s request for house arrest after he leaves the hospital.

Bolsonaro doesn't have any contact with the few other inmates at the federal police headquarters in Brasilia, where he is held and where his 12-square-meter (around 130-square-foot) room has a bed, a private bathroom, air conditioning, a television and a desk, according to authorities.

He has free access to his doctors and lawyers, but other visitors must receive approval from the Supreme Court. On Wednesday, de Moraes authorized Bolsonaro’s sons to visit him while he's hospitalized. His wife, Michelle Bolsonaro, is accompanying him.

Early Thursday, his eldest son, Sen. Flávio Bolsonaro, told reporters before the surgery that his father had written a letter confirming he had appointed him as his political party's presidential candidate in next year’s election. Flávio Bolsonaro announced on Dec. 5 that he will challenge President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who is seeking a fourth nonconsecutive term, as the candidate of Bolsonaro’s Liberal Party.

The senator read the letter to journalists, and his office released a reproduction of it to the media.

“He represents the continuation of the path of prosperity that I began well before becoming president, as I believe we must restore the responsibility of leading Brazil with justice, resolve and loyalty to the aspirations of the Brazilian people,” Bolsonaro said in the handwritten letter, dated Dec. 25.

The former president and several of his allies were convicted by a panel of Supreme Court justices for attempting to overthrow Brazil’s democratic system following his 2022 election defeat.

The plot included plans to kill Lula, Vice President Geraldo Alckmin and de Moraes. There was also a plan to encourage an insurrection in early 2023.

Bolsonaro was also convicted on charges that include leading an armed criminal organization and attempting the violent abolition of the democratic rule of law. He has denied any wrongdoing.

Follow the AP’s coverage of Latin America and the Caribbean at https://apnews.com/hub/latin-america

Brazil's former President Jair Bolsonaro points to his electronic ankle monitor that the Supreme Court ordered him to wear, at Congress in Brasilia, Brazil, July 21, 2025. (AP Photo/Minervino Junior, CB/D.A Press, File)