Draft:Airspace (company)

Overview
Airspace is a global time-critical logistics company that uses a proprietary AI and machine learning platform to find and execute the fastest possible route for time-critical packages and fulfills shipments via a team of Airspace Operations Specialists. The company aims to eliminate delays and errors caused by human dispatchers and traditional logistics processes; Airspace accomplishes this through automation and predictive machine learning. Airspace captures more than 16,000 different data points along a delivery and uses that data to provide a quote and a route in under 1 second. It provides customers with real-time tracking of driver location, status, estimated time of arrival, and other milestones. The company has focused on key markets including healthcare, high- tech/semiconductor, and aerospace. Over 100 companies, including LabCorp, FedEx, Frontier Airlines, Alaska Airlines, Quest Diagnostics, and the American Red Cross utilize or have utilized Airspace’s services. The company’s Board of Directors includes founder Nicholas Bulcao, Gary Kornfield, Neil Sequeira, founder of Defy VC, Stacey Bishop of Scale Ventures , Mark Sherman of Telstra Ventures, Ira Ehrenpreis, founder and managing partner at DBL Partners, and Joel Hwang, principal of HarbourVest.

History
Airspace was founded in 2016 in Carlsbad, California by CEO Nick Bulcao and CTO Ryan Rusnak to address challenges in time-critical shipping. The company has offices in Carlsbad, California, Dallas, Stockholm, Penang, and Amsterdam. The company’s mission is to eliminate the risks of complex &amp; critical shipping by giving shippers control over their supply chains. In 2019, Airspace was selected as one of CNBC’s Upstart 100 : a list of the “brightest, most intriguing, young startups promising to become the great companies of tomorrow”. In 2020, the company added executives Ben Kozy (COO), and Alex Coates (President and CFO). Airspace expanded internationally, opening up an office in Hoofddorp, Netherlands in 2020, and offers its services in over 100 countries. In 2021, the company launched AirTrace, a tracking solution that provides real-time location, temperature, humidity, motion, shock, and light exposure data. The company grew over 100% in 2021. As of 2022, Airspace had completed over one million shipments. In May of 2022, the company was recognized on CNBC’s Disruptor 50 list, which aims to highlight high growth private companies addressing large market opportunities in unique and disruptive ways. In December of 2022, Airspace’s CTO, Ryan Rusnak, was awarded the Michael R. Saul CTO of the Year award. The company has received several multiple including a patent for an optimized logistics management system that generates the most optimal path for transporting goods from a pickup location to a destination location at the lowest transit cost and minimal risk. On March 7th, 2023, Airspace was selected as one of America’s Best Startup Employers by Forbes. In December of 2023, Airspace was selected as one of Fast Company’s Next Big Things in Tech, which aims to highlight “technologies (which) are changing every facet of our economy—and our lives”. Airspace has been selected as one of the San Diego Business Journal’s Best Places to Work in 2019, 2020 , 2021 , 2022 , and 2023.

Fundraising
Airspace has raised over $100M in venture capital funds through four rounds of funding.

Services
Airspace, as an asset-light freight forwarder, doesn’t own any transportation assets. Instead, it manages a nationwide network of 1099 driver-partners that carry the appropriate certification and experience to pick up and deliver high-value shipments. The drivers are verified and then onboarded to the company’s Driver Partner App. These complex and sensitive shipments include items such as organs, parts for aircraft with mechanical breakdowns (facilitating solutions in AOG or aircraft on ground scenarios), medical supplies, laboratory samples, finished and non-finished goods for the semiconductor industry, and repair parts for high-tech machinery. Airspace provides many logistics services to its customers, which include but are not limited to, next-flight-out, on-demand ground (known as STAT services in the healthcare sector), charter, on-board courier, dangerous goods, and cold chain services.