How 'Uber for truckers' Cargomatic burned $15m pivoting from being a tech company

So it turns out that not all disrupters are particularly disruptive. This fascinating warts-and-all insight into California’s Cargomatic, the so-called “Uber for truckers”, reveals that the tech platform’s data is actually input manually. The company, which has laid off half its staff and seen the CEO, CFO and COO all leave, has failed to attract further investment and struggled after deliberately operating at a loss. It shut down its New York office, citing tolls and bad weather as “challenges to its business model”, while “old-school” freight managers were appointed who diverted the strategy away from the new technology. Now, apparently, CEVA remains just about its only customer. Staff said: “We [were] throwing out everything that made Cargomatic sexy and replacing it into a simple logistics company.” Another said: “It was a show-game. Customers thought this process was automated but we were asking people behind the scenes to make it look automated.” A great insight into a struggling tech start-up.