project44, Chicago, completed a financing round of $45 million led by Sapphire Ventures, a Palo Alto, Calif.-based venture capital firm, with additional investment from new investor Insight Venture Partners, New York, and participation from existing investors 8VC, San Francisco; Chicago Ventures, Chicago; Emergence Capital, San Mateo, Calif.; Omidyar Technology Ventures, Redwood City, Calif.; OpenView Venture Partners, Boston, Mass.; and Pritzker Group Venture Capital, Chicago.
Kevin Diestel, partner at Sapphire Ventures, will join the company’s board of directors.
The proceeds will be used to fund project44’s continued growth in North America, support new product initiatives in advanced visibility and drive international expansion.
“project44 will not merely participate in this newly developed visibility category, but will define, grow and lead it,” says Kevin Diestel, partner at Sapphire Ventures. “p44 is bringing to the shipping and logistics space what Stripe brought to payments, Twilio brought to communications and Mulesoft brought to SaaS applications. We invested because we believe that Jett and his team have distinguished themselves as the leading visibility platform, and have both the vision and positioning to continue to push the boundaries of what’s possible.”
“We have an amazing opportunity, fantastic customers, talented team and are the fastest-growing company in the space,” says Jett McCandless, founder and CEO of project44. “We’re thrilled to add Sapphire Ventures and Insight Venture Partners to our other world-class investors who share our customer-centric approach, and we look to leverage their deep operational expertise as we continue the process of building an industry-defining company that connects the world’s entire transportation ecosystem in the most productive way possible.”