ClearJet raises $25M for AI cargo network spanning 95 U.S. airports

ClearJet, an AI-enabled logistics startup based in Austin, raised $25 million in Series B funding led by Edison Partners, with participation from returning backers Venture53, Origin Ventures, SaltVC and SpringTime Ventures. This brings the company's total funding to $40 million since its inception in 2022. Earlier investors included Sky VC (formerly JetBlue Ventures) and Tandem Ventures.

The company's core business model is straightforward: rather than owning planes or trucks, ClearJet connects retailers with unused cargo capacity on commercial flights traveling between U.S. cities. Its network now spans 95 U.S. airports and connects with major U.S. airlines (United, Delta, Southwest, American, and JetBlue) and multiple final-mile delivery providers including FedEx, the U.S. Postal Service, DoorDash, Uber, OnTrac and Veho. Founder and CEO Chris Guggenheim describes it as a "super carrier"—a network that enables retailers to ship packages directly between cities on passenger planes already in the air, bypassing traditional parcel carrier networks. The approach can cut shipping costs by as much as 35% while speeding deliveries by one to three days.

One of ClearJet's first large retail customers provides a concrete example. The customer had previously relied on FedEx for goods arriving from Asia, with deliveries taking seven days from factory to customer. Under ClearJet's model, products arrive at Los Angeles International Airport, where the company takes possession, sorts, and flies them to 14 different airports before handing packages to final-mile carriers. The result was a reduction in delivery time from seven days to five, and $35 million in cost savings. The company moves more than 30 million packages annually, though it considers roughly 1.8 billion U.S. parcels eligible to move by air. ClearJet is profitable, has tripled revenue year over year, and is approaching nine figures in top-line revenue.

The company's technology centers on AI models that choose each parcel's path based on cost, speed and geography across its network. It is also developing AI agents to automate operational tasks such as rating, booking, tracking and managing delivery problems—including dynamically rerouting packages around weather disruptions by moving them onto different flights or through different cities. Retailers connect to ClearJet through an API and can generate two-day shipping labels. The company picks up packages, takes them to an airport, handles sorting and screening, and places them on commercial flights; ClearJet then injects them into final-mile networks at their destination. One logistical innovation was designing custom overpack bags specifically for e-commerce parcels, which can travel through airports like passenger luggage before being unloaded and handed to delivery companies—a solution to the problem that most U.S. passenger aircraft are narrow-body planes with cargo doors too small for standard freight pallets.

Guggenheim's path to ClearJet began in 1997 when he started an e-commerce business after meeting Willie Nelson and his family. He went on to build direct-to-fan e-commerce for music and sports clients, including launching the first beyonce.com, and his company One Live supported more than 2,000 Shopify Plus stores with over $1 billion in GMV. Throughout his entrepreneurial career, logistics became his biggest headache—shipping represented the second-largest cost of goods outside the product itself. After receiving a five-day cancellation notice from UPS in 2019 and realizing there had to be a better way, Guggenheim began thinking about the thousands of domestic passenger flights traveling around the U.S. and their unused cargo space. With no airline connections, he cold-emailed executives until reaching the president of United Cargo, who agreed at a cargo industry event that they would "be best friends." ClearJet formally launched in May 2023 after Guggenheim built relationships with major carriers and recruited people from the airline and parcel industries.

The company has just under 50 full-time employees and hundreds of contractors operating seven days a week. ClearJet raised its seed round in early 2023 and $13.4 million in a Series A in 2024. Guggenheim declined to disclose the Series B valuation but described it as a significant step-up from previous financing. The company plans to expand into returns and international shipping, grow its airport network, and give consumers much more detailed real-time visibility into package journeys, similar to the experience provided by DoorDash. Global funding to supply chain management and logistics startups reached $8.4 billion in 2026 so far, putting the year on pace to exceed 2025's total of $9 billion.