Doft Matches Owner-Operators With Loads, Ridesharing-Style

Doft is a freight-matching platform aimed at helping America's freelance and owner-operator truckers find work. Standing for "do freight transportation," it works much like ridesharing apps, connecting trucks and shippers in minutes.

The platform removes freight brokers and dispatchers and instead takes a transparent service fee from each side of the transaction. According to founder and CEO Dmitri Fedorchenko, that solves the inefficiency and opaqueness that have long plagued the industry, and makes the work better and more fulfilling for truck drivers who want to get out on the road.

"We want to save people and companies money and time, as well as help the environment."

Built around owner-operators

Fedorchenko notes that in the United States there are millions of big rigs in operation, moving billions of tons of freight and accounting for the majority of total domestic tonnage shipped. Freelance and owner-operator drivers make up a large group within that total, yet they are often ignored in favor of bigger haulage companies.

A major problem Doft addresses is empty running: for a meaningful share of their miles, trucks drive with no cargo. That is bad for the environment and means drivers miss out on a portion of their potential earnings. Using data-driven matching, Doft aims to keep truckers loaded with freight both heading to and from any destination.

Help for small shippers

On the other end of the marketplace, Doft helps small shippers who often do not know they need transport until the last minute. A shipment is usually needed as soon as goods are sold and a business has to clear its warehouse and return to its core work, rather than spend time searching for a truck. With on-demand matching, businesses can solve last-minute shipment needs even when orders come in late.

"We connect two overlooked groups, freelance truckers and small businesses with shipping needs, at a fraction of the cost demanded by brokers and dispatchers."

The result is a melding of the sharing economy and long-range haulage, designed to make freight transport faster, cheaper and more transparent for everyone involved.