Fura buys High-Rise in seventh deal of AI freight roll-up, eyes sub-$30M brokerages
What's the deal? Fura has acquired High-RiseDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, a Washington state-based freight brokerage, in its seventh acquisition. The purchase advances a strategy of buying small and mid-sized brokerages and automating operations with artificial intelligence.
Why now? Chief executive Jeff Dangelo said Fura targets brokerages under $30 million in revenue — a segment private equity largely ignores. It uses AI to unlock operating improvements of two to 10 times EBITDA.
What's the endgame? Fura follows a four-step playbook: carrier compliance diligence, wiring up the business on day one to structure unstructured data, deploying agentic AI for carrier communications, and giving shipper customers access to its visibility technology. Nearly 40% of booked carriers are now sourced through AI agents working via email, text, and phone.
Speed drives the model. "It takes us about a week to onboard the new businesses," Dangelo said. "Brad Jacobs used to say it takes them about 2 years to integrate. It takes us about a week because the technology does a lot of the work."
That efficiency shows in costs. Fura's selling, general, and administrative costs run 35% to 40%, against an industry range of 65% to 85% or higher. One brokerage Fura engaged at $26 million in revenue had fallen to $12 million by closing, then grew past $30 million — while headcount dropped from roughly 30 people to six.
By the numbers: Fura's revenue has grown from $10 million to over $100 million in two years, with 50% of that growth organic rather than from acquisitions. Dangelo called the opportunity "a many-billion-dollar opportunity to sort of supercharge businesses that couldn't have done it on their own."
The signal: Fura is betting on the long tail of freight brokerages, where the top 1,000 brokers capture 88% of industry revenue and smaller shops carry debt and weak compliance infrastructure. As post-Montgomery compliance risk mounts, its pitch is that AI can programmatically vet every shipment in seconds — turning overlooked brokerages into a consolidation play.
Read more: freightwaves.com
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