Rob Estes

Fintech platform Navix raises $5M, captures interest of industry angel investors

Logistics fintech platform Navix announced Tuesday it has secured $5 million in seed funding from several strategic and angel investors, including Tommy Barnes, logistics veteran and chief revenue officer of less-than-truckload platform MyCarrier, and Rob Estes, chairman and CEO of LTL carrier Estes Express Lines.

In an interview with FreightWaves, Navix co-founder Eric Krueger explained that after founding the company in June 2021 it has been flying under the radar — self-funded — and working...

Estes Express CEO invests in Cargo Chief, joins board

Digital freight-matching companyCargo Chief said Thursday that Rob W. Estes Jr., president and CEO of LTL carrier Estes Express Lines, has invested in Cargo Chief and has joined the board of directors of the Millbrae, California-based company. The amount of Estes’ investment was not disclosed.

Estes’ company, based in Richmond, Virginia, is the nation’s fifth-largest LTL carrier and North America’s largest privately held LTL operator. The family-owned trucker was founded in 1931 by Estes’...

https://www.freightwaves.com/news/estes-express-ceo-invests-in-cargo-chief-joins-board

More LTL carriers may follow AAA Cooper to the altar, consultant says

Five or 10 years ago, a truckload carrier would have looked askance at acquiring an LTL carrier. Truckload carriers were comfortable shipping directly from the shipper to the consignee at a minimal fixed cost, a model that runs counter to the multistop terminal networks of LTL carriers. The truckload-LTL relationship was mostly confined to truckload carriers handling shipments of overflow LTL freight weighing more than 8,000 pounds if LTL capacity was too tight to meet the demand. 

However,...

https://www.freightwaves.com/news/more-ltl-carriers-may-follow-aaa-cooper-to-the-altar-consultant-says

Small Fleet Summit: Estes sees no end to supply-demand imbalance

The unprecedented supply-demand imbalance experienced across all of American trucking will extend through the balance of 2021 and at least into the first half of 2022, Estes Express Line Inc. President, Chairman and CEO Rob Estes said Wednesday.

Keynoting FreightWaves’ Owner-Operator and Small Carrier summit, Estes said the prolonged strength spawned by demand spikes and tight capacity is unlike anything he’s seen in his four-plus decades in the industry. In 1979, Estes joined the family...

https://www.freightwaves.com/news/small-fleet-summit-estes-sees-no-end-to-supply-demand-imbalance