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The Daily // Wed 08.19.26 View in browser →
The DailyWednesday · August 19, 2026
The five minutes that makes you the most informed person in freight today
Lead Story
167 logistics companies made the 2026 Inc. 5000Every year, Inc. magazine’s Inc. 5000 ranks the fastest-growing private companies in America, and for 2026 the logistics and transportation category placed 167 companies on the list. Collectively they posted a 114% median three-year growth rate, $23.1 billion in combined revenue, 115,631 employees, and 39 companies young enough to still count as newcomers. Grip was the runaway freight leader, posting a 29,398% three-year growth rate on revenue in the $25 million to $50 million range with more than 2,000% employee growth since its 2022 founding. Mountainy followed at 9,512% growth in the same revenue band, also founded in 2022, while Jet Freight Services rounded out the top tier at 6,360% growth paired with a 4,900% jump in headcount. A deep field of freight and logistics companies posted growth most business owners only dream about, including Vektor Logistics at 4,577%, PipShip at 2,807%, and ZonPrep, founded in 2014, at 1,521% growth with a 6,733% increase in employees. Recognizable industry names made the list too: Gatik grew 512%, Loadsmart posted 36% growth on revenue between $25 million and $50 million, and Overhaul grew 33% with 258% employee growth since 2016. The pattern across the 167 names is notable for anyone on the asset-based side of the business: the fastest-growing logistics and transportation companies are overwhelmingly brokerages, freight-tech platforms, software and audit services, moving companies and specialized 3PLs, with relatively few traditional asset-based trucking companies represented. Why It Matters?
The Inc. 5000’s freight and logistics list functions as a real-time map of where investors and operators see the most upside in the industry, and this year’s results reinforce that the fastest money is chasing companies that organize and optimize freight rather than the trucks and trailers that physically move it. Top Stories
Consumer demand fires strong July for LA portThe Port of Los Angeles handled 960,464 TEUs in July, the second-highest July total in the port’s history, just shy of June’s mark that topped 1 million units for the first time. "After topping 1 million container units in June, we nearly reached that mark again in July," said Gene Seroka, the port’s executive director. "Businesses continue to move cargo when they see windows of opportunity amid an evolving trade environment, while resilient consumer demand is helping keep imports at historically strong levels." July volume ran 6% below last year’s frontloading-driven record but 7.5% above the port’s five-year July average. Loaded imports reached 499,552 TEUs, loaded exports totaled 111,776 TEUs, and empty containers moved at 349,137 TEUs. Through the first seven months of 2026, the port has handled 6,083,067 TEUs, up 1.8% year over year, and Seroka said he expects another strong month in August. Why It Matters?
The Port of Los Angeles running near-record volumes even as year-over-year comparisons soften shows resilient consumer demand is absorbing tariff-driven trade uncertainty, a signal shippers and drayage providers will watch closely heading into peak season. Sponsored · Aurora
Life Couriers gains new CEO with sale to private equity firmMunich-based Life Couriers, a healthcare-focused expedited and temperature-controlled logistics provider, has been acquired by private equity firm JLL Partners, with Edward DeMartini named CEO. DeMartini previously led the Quick Group of Companies, a Kuehne+Nagel-owned time-critical logistics unit, and spent 12 years in airfreight leadership roles at Kuehne+Nagel before that. Life Couriers, which changed its name from Ontime Courier in 2025, runs six specialized service lines spanning radiopharmaceuticals, life science and stem cell transport, direct-to-patient delivery, pharmaceutical freight and emergency logistics across the U.S., Europe, Central America and Asia. The company said it will use JLL’s financial resources and healthcare expertise to expand its footprint amid growing demand for time-sensitive medical logistics. Why It Matters?
The healthcare logistics market is growing because high technical and compliance requirements allow for lucrative value-added services beyond basic parcel transportation as an aging global population needs more drugs and biological medical products to deal with chronic disease, according to industry experts. DHL, FedEx and UPS are investing heavily in end-to-end cold-chain infrastructure and processes to ensure precise temperature management during shipping as they each flirt with $10 billion in annual healthcare-related revenue. Last year UPS acquired a large Canadian logistics firm that specializes in healthcare and DHL bought U.S. healthcare courier SDS Rx. Customs to fight this growing trade fraud with AI ‘detective border’A new White House trade report argues that illegal transshipment of China-linked goods through third countries has grown into a global system for evading U.S. tariffs, potentially costing the Treasury tens of billions of dollars annually. The report identifies more than 40 countries at elevated transshipment risk, from major trading partners like Mexico, Canada and the EU to manufacturing hubs such as Vietnam, Malaysia and Turkey. Estimates across five government and private-sector analyses put potential annual transshipment exposure between $40 billion and $303 billion, with a central case of $75 billion implying $19 billion to $34 billion in lost tariff revenue, 450,000 displaced jobs and $113 billion to $150 billion in annual GDP losses. The report calls for an AI-enabled "Detective Border" system combining shipment data, routing histories, computer vision and container imaging to help Customs and Border Protection flag false origin claims. Why It Matters?
The Trump administration looking at new ways to stop trade fraud spurred in part by its own tariff strategy. Burq bets on the last-mile decision layer as giants retreatBurq, a last-mile delivery technology startup, is wagering that orchestration, the decision layer sitting above a growing bench of regional carriers, 3PL cross-docks, gig platforms and private fleets, is what enterprise retailers will actually pay for. FreightWaves reported in July that 55% of retailers now use carriers outside FedEx, UPS and the Postal Service, with alternative carriers moving 2.6 billion parcels last year, up 13%, while UPS and USPS volumes each fell 8.3%. Jake Stein, who joined Burq four months ago after four and a half years running Uber Direct’s retail launches, said most retailers lose visibility the moment an order leaves their order management system. Burq’s platform monitors pickups against real-time thresholds, for example reassigning a delivery to a new courier if it hasn’t been picked up within nine minutes, and factors in carrier volume commitments before making the switch. Why It Matters?
Burq’s bet on last-mile orchestration reflects how carrier diversification, not carrier consolidation, is now driving delivery reliability for enterprise retailers, putting pressure on shippers to build or buy the monitoring layer that decides which provider actually gets the package there on time. FreightWaves Today · Live at 12PM ET
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FreightWaves Events
F3: Future of Freight Festival
FreightWaves’ flagship event blends the latest FreightTech with rapid-fire demos and world-class speakers with the most legendary networking in logistics. October 27–28, 2026 · The Signal, Chattanooga
Sponsored Insight
Presented by PCS
$90,000 a Year: What Your Dispatchers Can’t See Costs YouMost fleets run on speed, not structure, and the loads you never evaluated are quietly costing you margin. This guide breaks down the four points where a freight funnel leaks value. Presented by Trimble
Beyond Mapping & Routing: Transforming Fleet Data into Operational IntelligenceMove Beyond Basic Routing to Improve Lane Profitability. Presented by Trimble
White Paper: AI Agent Readiness and Adoption in FreightAI is moving beyond experimentation and into everyday freight operations. From automating repetitive tasks to supporting operational decisions, AI agents are creating new opportunities for efficiency across the supply chain. Presented by Aurora
Your next truck could drive itself.Aurora Driver 2 is hauling freight on public roads. From the Research Desk
In partnership with CargoWise Landside
What It Takes to Win in the Next Era of DrayageFreightWaves and CargoWise Landside surveyed drayage operators on the automation investments separating growth from margin compression amid demand volatility and driver shortages. In partnership with Werner
High-Stakes Freight Brokerage: Risk and AccountabilityFreightWaves and Werner surveyed shippers moving high-value freight and found compliance failures and limited visibility are turning low-cost brokerage into a reliability risk, not just a pricing one. Courtesy of Infios
New Research: Tariffs Didn’t Raise Costs. They Raised the Execution Standard.Infios-backed research breaks down how tariff volatility turned transport-mode selection and trade-route monitoring into daily operating decisions instead of annual ones. Watch on FreightWaves TV
What We’re Watching
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LA port’s hot streak faces an August testThe Port of Los Angeles came within reach of a second straight 1-million-TEU month in July. Watch whether resilient consumer demand carries August to another near-record, as Seroka expects. ▸
Healthcare logistics keeps drawing PE moneyJLL Partners’ buy of Life Couriers follows UPS’s and DHL’s recent healthcare courier deals. Watch whether more private equity firms chase the sector as it’s projected to roughly double to $503 billion by 2034. ▸
Washington’s "Detective Border" plan takes shapeA White House report pegs transshipment exposure as high as $303 billion and proposes an AI system to flag false origin claims. Watch whether Congress or CBP moves to fund the enforcement buildout. That’s your Daily for today. See you tomorrow.
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