A story of building what didn't exist for Mexico and Canada freight

Mexico and Canada freight has always been complex. For decades, the industry worked around it. We decided to build for it.

  1. 2007
  2. 2014
  3. 2018
  4. 2023
  5. 2024
  6. 2025
  7. Today
  1. 2007: Matt Silver grew up in freight.

    He was a kid around his dad's freight business and started at Coyote Logistics as an intern at 19.

  2. 2014: Mexico freight still ran on Nextel radios.

    Matt launched Coyote's Mexico business. Cross-border loads moved on Nextel radios and who you knew, with seven or eight parties on every shipment.

  3. 2018: Forager taught the lesson behind Cargado.

    Matt founded Forager, a Mexico and Canada digital brokerage that Arrive Logistics acquired in 2022. Cargado was built as a marketplace for brokers, not another brokerage.

    “You can either be a service provider or a tech company. You cannot be both at the same time.”
    Advice Matt got while building Forager
  4. 2023: Brokers kept asking for a real marketplace.

    Mexico had become the U.S.'s No. 1 trading partner, with no modern marketplace and no real rate data. In October, Matt teamed up with Rylan Hawkins, who joined Convoy from Microsoft and spent eight years there. He built Convoy Go and Convoy for Brokers, which let brokers cover loads with Convoy's carriers. Now they'd build that for Mexico and Canada.

    • Matt Silver, Co-founder and CEO

      Matt Silver

      Co-founder and CEO

      Coyote Mexico · Forager · Arrive

    • Rylan Hawkins, Co-founder and CTO

      Rylan Hawkins

      Co-founder and CTO

      Microsoft · Convoy

    Rylan in office with a laptop on the table and hanging lights overhead.
  5. 2024: Cargado went live on a Thursday in April.

    Cargado means “loaded” in Spanish. After meeting carriers face to face in Laredo, we launched with three brokers and 200 carriers. By Monday, carriers were bidding.

    Two men wearing orange safety vests walking in a parking lot with trailers at sunset.
    Cargado employees
  6. 2025: Canada, Market Rates and a Series A.

    The marketplace expanded into Canada and domestic Mexico. We launched Market Rates, built on live carrier bids, and the Excel Add-In, and raised a $12M Series A led by LGVP.

    Cargado employees in a meeting room viewing a screen and laptops showing data or schedules.
  7. Today: Hundreds of brokers and 2,400+ carriers.

    Day oneToday
    Carriers2002,400+
    Brokers3Hundreds

    That includes 8 of the 10 largest logistics companies in North America. Every carrier is vetted before it can bid, and we meet brokers before they join. Two straight FreightTech 25 top-10 finishes and $22M raised.

Prefer to hear it told? Matt tells the whole story on the podcasts page, from Bloomberg's Odd Lots to The Freight Pod.

Close-up of two hands holding handheld radios with antennas, in warm outdoor light.

In the 2010s and before, the industry used Nextel walkie-talkies to move Mexico freight.

Then it moved to WhatsApp, LinkedIn, and tech built for domestic freight, patching together networks through emails and word of mouth. “The tools we have weren’t built for this.” Matt Silver had lived that frustration for a decade, launching Coyote Mexico at Coyote Logistics in 2014, then founding Forager, the cross-border freight platform he sold to Arrive Logistics. And on call after call, the same question kept coming up: why is there no modern marketplace, and no real rate data, for Mexico freight?

By 2023, Mexico had become the U.S.’s No. 1 trading partner, Canada its second.

Nearly $1.6 trillion in goods trade was moving across North American borders (Census/BTS). Nearshoring was accelerating. But the tech still hadn’t caught up. In October that year, Matt teamed up with Rylan Hawkins, an engineering leader from Microsoft and Convoy, to build the modern marketplace for Mexico and Canada freight. Two months later the team was in Laredo, meeting carriers face to face: the in-person vetting that still defines the network today.

Rylan in office with a laptop on the table and hanging lights overhead.
Cargado employees

Cargado, which means “loaded" in Spanish, went live on a Thursday in April 2024.

It started with three brokers and 200 carriers. That first day, a few loads posted, but there were no carrier notifications yet, so nobody was bidding. By Monday, with a few calls to carriers and a few more loads posted, carriers started bidding and matching with brokers.

In 2025, the Cargado marketplace expanded into Canada and domestic Mexico.

We also launched Cargado Market Rates, powered by live carrier bids, and the Excel Add-In to help brokers price and win freight faster. In April, we raised a $12M Series A led by LGVP, fueling our mission to connect brokers and carriers across Mexico and Canada through modern tools, a vetted carrier network, and structured communication.

Cargado employees in a meeting room viewing a screen and laptops showing data or schedules.
Two men wearing orange safety vests walking in a parking lot with trailers at sunset.

Today, hundreds of brokers and 2,400+ carriers use Cargado to move Mexico and Canada freight.

Mexico and Canada freight isn't inherently impossible. It has just been underserved by a modern workflow and modern market data. We're building the marketplace and infrastructure layer, so brokers can reliably find capacity, run clean execution across multiple legs, and price with confidence using real carrier bids.

Hundreds of brokers are on Cargado, including 8 of the 10 largest logistics companies in North America, alongside 2,400+ vetted carriers. We built it vetted on purpose: brokers we meet before onboarding, vetted carriers, and relationships that compound instead of resetting with every load. The industry has noticed, with back-to-back top-10 finishes on the FreightWaves FreightTech 25 (#10, then #9) and $22M raised to keep building. And we're just getting started: Cargado's future is loaded with promise and plans.

Prefer to hear it told? Matt tells the whole story on the podcasts page, from Bloomberg's Odd Lots to The Freight Pod.

To make freight interconnected, dependable, and transparent for every broker and carrier moving goods across Mexico, Canada and the U.S.

To make cross-border freight interconnected, dependable, and transparent for every broker and carrier moving goods across North America.

Meet the team

Matt Silver, Co-founder and CEO
Matt Silver
Co-founder and CEO
Rylan Hawkins, Co-founder and CTO
Rylan Hawkins
Co-founder and CTO
Brian Sinclair, Head of Marketplace Strategy
Brian Sinclair
Head of Marketplace Strategy
Chris Agnew, Head of Sales
Chris Agnew
Head of Sales

Our values

Obsess Over Customers

We work to deeply understand every broker and carrier who uses Cargado and prioritize their needs above our own. We balance immediate feedback with forward-thinking innovation, building not just for today but for the future of the industry.

Seek Truth,
Use Data

We ground our work in facts, ask hard questions, and challenge our own assumptions. Curiosity drives us to understand the "why" behind every problem. We balance thoughtful analysis with decisive action.

Win As
a Team

We put shared success above individual recognition. We communicate honestly, challenge ideas with respect, and fully commit once a path is chosen. Outcomes over ego. Progress over pride.

Move With Velocity, Take Accountability

We move fast but in the right direction. We take full ownership of outcomes, not just tasks. We act with urgency and initiative, and we're resourceful enough to unblock ourselves before asking for answers.

Our investors

Life at Cargado

Cargado is distributed across North America. We're a small, fast-moving team of freight operators, engineers, and builders who use AI as a daily multiplier.

We'd make room for one person: a chief of staff who is further down the AI rabbit hole than our CEO. The careers page has the details.

  • The Cargado team at dinner
  • The whole Cargado team in matching fleeces on outdoor steps at night
  • About a dozen teammates together in a hotel lobby
  • Six teammates in Cargado fleeces taking a selfie
  • The team in leis and party glasses at a photo booth
  • The team smiling around a long dinner table
  • Six teammates at a bar table in front of a mural

Join us

Cargado is distributed across North America. We're a small, fast-moving team of freight operators, engineers, and builders who use AI as a daily multiplier. We're not hiring right now. Our careers page explains the one exception.

The Cargado team at dinner

Get started on Cargado

Tell us what you move and we’ll set you up on your own lanes. No call required.

Rather be walked through it? Book a demo