Truck-sharing startup Bungii expands into another huge market

Kansas City-based truck-sharing app Bungii is hitting the gas on its East Coast expansion.

Several months after opening operations in Atlanta, the truck-sharing startup announced Thursday that it will offer its platform in the Washington D.C. area. The expansion includes neighborhoods in the District of Columbia, southeastern Maryland and northeastern Virginia.

With the D.C. metro, Bungii can reap benefits from the area’s high population density, co-founder and president Ben Jackson said.

“The denser the city, the less strain it puts on driver availability from an operational perspective,” he said. “Building a marketplace is tough and the great thing about Bungii is that we’re tasked with building a marketplace from the ground up in every city we expand into. After launching in KC and expanding to ATL, the density D.C. provides is a huge win, operationally.”

Led by Jackson and co-founder Harrison Proffitt, Bungii created an app to connect users with area truck drivers to haul items. In January, the startup closed its Series A round at $3 million featuring such investors as Kansas City-based PerceptiveEquity and C2FO CEO Sandy Kemper.

Only about 18 months old, Bungii has tapped Kansas City as a testbed to learn more about its customers and how to streamline its operation, Jackson said. For instance, the company now knows to more methodically hire truck drivers as independent contractors to provide them more consistent work, he said.

The driving force behind the firm’s growth is its customers, who report high satisfaction with the Bungii’s services, Jackson said.

“Word of mouth makes up the vast majority of customer acquisition,” he said. “We enjoy a net promoter score of 94 — USAA has the highest NPS score of any fortune 500 company with an NPS of 80. Our team — from our software engineers to our drivers, to our customer service — do a fantastic job ensuring the highest quality of service across the board.”

Bungii has more than 100 active drivers in Kansas City, 150 in Atlanta and about 25 in the quadrant of D.C. it launched Thursday.

Kansas City was instrumental to learning how Bungii should expand across the U.S., Jackson said.

“It’s easy to will a concept into existence within walking distance of where it was created. But the real problems start occurring as you begin looking to scaling — especially on a national level,” he said. “I like to think Kansas City was where Bungii was born, Atlanta was where Bungii was raised and now that we’re expanding beyond Atlanta, we’re somewhat entered the adult phase of expansion. I’m by no means saying we’re there as a company but the success we had in Atlanta validated our ability to execute in multiple markets.”

Learn more about the company here.