Jeff Bezos, Marc Benioff back Uber of trucks Convoy now

NEW YORK: Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, Salesforce.com's Marc Benioff and EBay founder Pierre Omidyar might disagree. They, along with other investors, are backing Convoy, a Seattle-based startup that's betting there's no better time to bring some of the ideas used by Uber -connecting drivers and customers with mobile technology -to the $749 billion market for hauling freight and merchandise.

Oh, and Uber cofounder Garrett Camp is also helping to fund Convoy. Convoy, which shippers can use to request a truck, get instant price quotes and track drivers throughout pickup and delivery, said it's raised $2.5 million in early financing. The startup is mainly focused on shorthaul trucking, usually one-day trips between companies.

"Trucking is probably the largest outdated industry in the country," said founder Dan Lewis, who left Amazon in February with a view to starting his own company.

Hadi Partovi, the cofounder of Code.org and an early investor in Facebook, encouraged Lewis to look at trucking and introduced him to investors.

Bringing technology to shipping isn't a new idea. Amazon, Postmates and Uber are expanding (and speeding up) last-mile delivery of goods and services.In May, Flexport raised funding from Google Ventures by positioning itself as the Uber of shipping containers.

"As an angel investor, it's the largest market opportunity I've ever seen, at least since looking at Facebook in 2005," Partovi said.