Commercial vehicle parking and storage provider Semi-Stow announced Tuesday it has rebranded itself to Outpost and has raised $12.5 million in Series A funding led by GreenPoint Partners with participation from Speedwagon Capital Partners.
The United States currently has approximately 313,000 truck parking spaces for a populace exceeding 3.5 million active drivers. This translates to about one spot for every 11 drivers. This shortfall creates a scenario in which over 70% of drivers break federal hours-of-service regulations just to find somewhere to park or sleep.
“We believe it is going to take a village to solve this problem,” Trent Cameron, co-founder and CEO of Outpost, told FreightWaves.
This is what inspired the company’s unique, two-part business plan. First, the company purchases real estate, giving it full control over operations as well as the brand experience that drivers have while parking at Outpost properties. Then it brokers available parking at 20 yards that are managed by its partners.
“The brokerage piece is a function of our loyal customers. Whether it is an owner-operator or a large fleet, they often come to us and say, ‘We recognize that you don’t have an Outpost location here, but we like working with you,’ so we go out and find those locations across the country and facilitate that parking transaction,” Cameron explained.
Presently, the company owns 18 properties comprising 8,000 spaces. It looks to double the number of properties over 2024 with its capital infusion.
This ambitious expansion trajectory will be further propelled by Outpost’s stewardship of a $500 million industrial outdoor storage investment fund with GreenPoint in 2023.
“In the last year, the company has built a top-notch bench of talent and demonstrated its ability to profitably scale while addressing an urgent issue that directly impacts our economy and the safety of every driver on the road. We see tremendous opportunity for Outpost in the years ahead and are excited to extend our investment and partnership,” said Chris Green, founder and CEO of GreenPoint.
Cameron added that Outpost supports parking both chassis and trailer assets for owner-operators, small fleets and some of the largest fleets, including Landstar, Werner, FirstFleet, Pam Transportation, Prime Inc., Western Flyer Xpress, Riverside Transport and Dot Transportation.
The company also plans to adapt Outpost properties to future trends in trucking.
“Real estate has long been a very expensive inhibitor for trucking strategies,” said Cameron. “We think that by building out this network for real estate, we can help companies of all sizes unlock new strategies around their businesses including utilizing trailer pools or even happenings in the future including electric and hydrogen-powered vehicles. Our vision is that we are the ones that carry that burden. … Today the vision looks like, drop-and-hook, trailer staging, housing drivers, and parking overnight. Tomorrow it looks like these outposts for shared services and amenities for drivers and trucking companies to take advantage of no matter where they are.”
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