September 15, 2022

Denim, a fintech platform for freight brokers, raises $126M in equity and debt

Denim, the fintech platform for freight and logistics formerly known as Axle Payments, today announced that it raised $126 million in a Series B funding round led by Pelion Venture Partners with participation from Crosslink Capital, Anthemis, Trucks VC, FJ Labs, Tribeca Early Stage Partners and Refashiond Ventures at a “nine-figure” valuation. CEO and co-founder Bharath Krishnamoorthy tells TechCrunch that the new cash, a combination of equity ($26 million) and debt ($100 million), will be put toward scaling the business and providing Denim’s customers with working capital.

Krishnamoorthy and Denim’s other co-founder, Shawn Vo, had been friends for 16 years before they launched the company. Vo was in the credit risk department at Barclays and a full-stack developer at Fintria, a fintech company, while Krishnamoorthy was an associate at several law firms, including Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher.

“We witnessed a significant gap in the freight broker market, where legacy systems — i.e. paper checks, physical filing — were still in place, and developed an intuitive payments technology to help streamline broker operations and attract the best carrier relationships through the platform,” Krishnamoorthy told TechCrunch via email. Read rest here