Dive Brief:

• Uber Freight has taken a minority ownership stake in delivery provider Better Trucks as the two companies expand their commercial partnership and aim to attract more shippers, according to a news release published on Thursday.
• Through the arrangement, Uber Freight can hand off volume to Better Trucks, and vice versa, to benefit both companies' delivery coverage for customers. The partnership also allows Uber Freight, which offers last-mile transportation and other logistics capabilities for customers, to utilize seven sortation centers and technology from Better Trucks.
• Uber Freight's network now covers approximately 68% of the U.S. population with the addition of Better Trucks' capacity, per the release. The company aims to cover about 85% by the end of 2026, said Hany Elkordy, SVP of last mile, in an interview with Supply Chain Dive.

Dive Insight:

Better Trucks has been providing services for Uber Freight for roughly a year, according to Elkordy. Their expanded partnership leverages Uber Freight's strength in connecting delivery regions, along with Better Trucks' operations in many high-demand urban areas and robust technological abilities, he said.

"We bring the connectivity zone to zone, end to end, across a massive coverage region. They bring technology that delivers inside of those regions at a phenomenal cost," Elkordy said.

Better Trucks' tech includes address validation and geocoding, which ensures delivery addresses provided by the shipper are accurate and converts them into precise geographic coordinates. This improves first-time delivery reliability and helps prevent added costs by reducing the number of re-attempted deliveries, Elkordy said.

"There's nothing worse than going and doing a first-time delivery, and it's garbage, because either the address is wrong, you don't have access codes, you don't have the ability to get into a multi-unit dwelling, all this stuff," Elkordy said.

Uber Freight can also leverage Better Trucks' open API architecture. For example, if an Uber Freight customer wants to use an order tracking provider that's already integrated with Better Trucks, Uber Freight can then leverage that existing connection to enable the integration for its own customers, Elkordy said.

For Better Trucks, the collaboration allows volume from a broader customer base to flow into its last-mile network. Better Trucks can also tap into Uber Freight's last-mile coverage for deliveries to its own customers.

"There's a handful of markets that we've lit up where Uber Direct is actually coming and being serviced out of a Better Trucks facility," Elkordy said, referring to Uber's on-demand delivery service for businesses.

Uber Freight's investment will also enable Better Trucks to strengthen its technological capabilities further and scale its operations, said Andy Whiting, founder and CEO of Better Trucks, in an interview. Better Trucks is planning to "go into new markets in a bunch of different cities" next year as the delivery provider looks to build upon its momentum from this year, he added.

The companies declined to provide further details on the size of the investment or its terms. Elkordy said it's to be determined whether Uber Freight will further grow its financial stake in Better Trucks in the future.

"Let's play this out for the next year or so and see how that investment plays out," he said.