Raised $1.6 million and entered the top 3 of Alchemist Accelerator: the story of Loadex, an AI startup from Kyrgyzstan

Aigerim Birnazarova, Chicago, Co-founder and COO of Loadex, DevOps Engineer, Instagram, LinkedIn

How It All Started

A couple of years ago, when I was still working as a DevOps engineer at Google, my friend Aman Seidakmatov was a manager at one of the large trucking companies in Chicago. While building a new team of dispatchers, he noticed that the productivity of newcomers was significantly lower than that of experienced colleagues: they made mistakes, lost cargo, and worked slower.

Aman observed that the key reason was the overload and constant multitasking of dispatchers. Their main task was to book the best cargo, but at the same time, they analyzed offers, checked documents, negotiated with brokers, and communicated with drivers almost around the clock. The work became exhausting.

He realized that some of these tasks could be automated to free up dispatchers’ time and energy for key decisions. This idea resonated with me, and that’s how we started building Loadex — a tool that takes over routine tasks and allows dispatchers to focus on critical decisions.

Startup Launch

Aman decided to test his idea and started with an MVP in the form of an Excel spreadsheet and a Telegram bot. Dispatchers began using these tools, and their productivity increased while errors decreased. This confirmed the hypothesis. To understand the scale of the problem, he conducted 36 interviews with trucking company owners and found that everyone faced similar challenges, and there were almost no technological solutions.

The next step was building the team. We attracted two talented developers from Bishkek who already had experience in creating software for the trucking industry. They became co-founders. All development and expenses were covered by our own funds.

Within a month, we launched the first version of the product. From day one, we collected feedback from dispatchers and continuously improved the product based on how it was actually used.

Target Audience

Our product is directly useful to truck dispatchers and trucking company owners. Dispatchers can install our Chrome extension and start using it immediately. However, when connected through a company, advanced features become available: dashboards, driver management, analytics, and more.

Currently, our clients include 12 major trucking companies in the U.S., with a total of about 650 dispatchers and over 4,000 trucks.

Incubation Programs

We applied to accelerators such as Y Combinator, 500 Startups, Techstars, and AlchemistX Accelerator. Three of them invited us to the final interview, and we chose AlchemistX Accelerator because of their focus on B2B startups and strong investor network. Alchemist also invested in us, which was enough to cover approximately five months of operations.

During this time, we participated in online accelerator training and traveled to San Francisco for meetings with other startup founders and mentors. It was great to share our challenges and see that other founders were going through the same issues or had already overcome them and were ready to share their experience. Despite different startup directions, the development process and typical problems are similar for everyone.

By the fifth month, we realized that funds were running out quickly, and it was time to raise investments. Endless emails and calls with investors began. At first, we faced continuous rejections, but we managed to secure funding from several angel investors. This helped us stay afloat and buy time to find larger investors.

Soon, the first venture fund supported us, and others joined once they learned about it. Our goal was to raise $1 million, but we ultimately raised $1.6 million, closing the round at 60% above our initial target.

Challenges

Every stage of our development had its challenges. At the very beginning, it was difficult to focus on the most important problem that needed to be solved. We wanted to create a product that would solve several different logistics problems at once. Later, we realized it was better not to spread ourselves too thin and expand the product gradually.

There was a point when we had only two weeks of funding left and had not received any positive responses from investors. We, the founders, discussed the possibility that we would all need to find jobs while working on the startup in our free time.

The fundraising process itself was also challenging. We had to talk to a large number of people, convince them, go through all necessary checks, and wait for decisions for weeks. Several times we were rejected at the very last moment.

It was not easy, but each stage taught us something.

My advice to aspiring founders is to first focus on one clear pain point rather than trying to build a universal product right away.

Achievements

We joined Alchemist Accelerator and became one of their portfolio companies. By the end of the program, we were in the top-3 most successful startups in our cohort, and the president of Alchemist, Ravi Belani, personally invested in our project.

We raised $1.6 million at the Pre-Seed stage from leading Silicon Valley venture funds, as well as from Murat Abdrakhmanov, one of the most prominent investors in Central Asia.

We have created a product that is used daily by hundreds of dispatchers and recommended to their colleagues.

We also grew our team to 13 people and continue to expand.

Plans

We plan to scale sales in the U.S. In the near future, we will launch full automation of negotiations with brokers using artificial intelligence. We also aim to increase revenue and prepare to raise funds in the Seed round.