ClearJet raised $12.35 million in Series A funding for passenger-flight parcel network

Why it matters

ClearJet is testing whether software, airline access and third-party delivery networks can produce national parcel scale without the capital burden of owning planes and trucks.

Chris Guggenheim's ClearJet, an Austin logistics technology company, raised $12.35 million in a Series A financing in May 2024, according to a CB Insights funding record. Guggenheim founded ClearJet in 2022 to build a parcel network that uses available cargo capacity on commercial passenger flights.

The financing record

A CB Insights record lists the financing as a $12.35 million Series A dated May 28, 2024. Public investor materials also include a ClearJet company page from Venture53.

ClearJet coordinates airline capacity, airport handling and final-mile carriers without owning aircraft or a nationwide truck fleet. Crunchbase News describes the company's operating model as routing ecommerce packages through unused cargo capacity on commercial passenger flights.

Later, OnTrac named ClearJet its exclusive launch partner for an express service combining ClearJet's air transportation with OnTrac's ground delivery network. The service was designed to offer two- and three-day coast-to-coast delivery ahead of a planned early 2026 rollout.

Guggenheim started his first company in 1997 after meeting Willie Nelson and his family and building direct-to-fan ecommerce businesses for them. He later worked with a range of music and sports clients. In 2019, he says, one of those operations had spent $55 million with UPS when the carrier gave him five days' notice that it would close the account because the business was not profitable enough. The experience pushed him to consider whether a retailer could assemble a delivery network from transportation capacity that already existed.

ClearJet's answer requires no airline fleet. According to Crunchbase News, the company connects shippers to commercial flights already moving between U.S. cities, handles airport sorting and screening, then passes packages to final-mile providers at the destination. AI models choose routes based on cost, speed and geography, while software coordinates airlines, airport operations and delivery services.

"We're basically connecting with the already moving aircraft," Guggenheim told Crunchbase News.

A parcel carrier assembled from other companies' assets

Retailers connect to ClearJet through an API and generate two-day shipping labels, according to Crunchbase News. ClearJet collects the packages, transports them to an airport, sorts and screens them, places them on commercial flights, and injects them into final-mile networks after arrival. Guggenheim named FedEx, the U.S. Postal Service, DoorDash, Uber, OnTrac and Veho among the delivery options available within the network. He said the company's customers include large retailers, ecommerce platforms, third-party logistics providers and marketplaces.

ClearJet calls that structure a "SuperCarrier." The term describes a configurable shipping network instead of a conventional carrier with its own nationwide fleet and fixed hub system. Shippers can use existing carrier accounts or arrange delivery through ClearJet, according to ClearJet's public product materials, including its Air Zone Skip product.

Guggenheim told Crunchbase News that ClearJet moves more than 30 million packages annually. He also said the company can reduce shipping costs by as much as 35% and shorten delivery times by one to three days. Those volume and performance figures are company-reported. ClearJet estimates that roughly 1.8 billion U.S. parcels are eligible to move by air, leaving its reported annual volume at a small share of the market it targets.

The OnTrac agreement provides outside evidence of a commercial deployment involving ClearJet's operating model. The planned service combined ClearJet's air transportation with OnTrac's ground delivery network for coast-to-coast shipments.

Guggenheim described another deployment involving goods arriving from Asia for a large retailer. ClearJet took possession at Los Angeles International Airport, sorted the parcels and flew them to 14 airports before handing them to final-mile carriers. Guggenheim said the arrangement reduced factory-to-customer delivery from seven days to five and saved the retailer $35 million, according to Crunchbase News. ClearJet has not named the customer.

Guggenheim's second pass at unused capacity

ClearJet grew from a problem Guggenheim had been working on before its 2022 founding. His earlier business, ONELIVE, developed ecommerce, fulfillment and membership services for entertainment and sports brands. Guggenheim told Crunchbase News that ONELIVE supported more than 2,000 Shopify Plus stores, generating more than $1 billion in gross merchandise value.

In November 2020, ONELIVE launched X Delivery, a technology-based parcel network designed to fill unused capacity across existing logistics providers. X Delivery was the clearest precursor to ClearJet: both were built around coordinating assets owned by other operators instead of financing a new national fleet.

The airline component required a different set of relationships. Guggenheim told Crunchbase News that he began by cold-emailing airline executives and eventually secured a brief meeting with the president of United Cargo. He said ClearJet later established relationships with United, Delta, Southwest, American and JetBlue. ClearJet formally launched in May 2023.

Passenger aircraft presented a physical constraint. Guggenheim told Crunchbase News that many domestic planes have cargo doors that cannot accept the pallets commonly used by freight forwarders. ClearJet designed overpack bags for ecommerce parcels that can move through airports more like passenger luggage. The bags allow packages to pass through existing airline infrastructure without requiring airlines to rebuild their handling systems.

Routing software meets airport operations

ClearJet's airline relationships, regional sorting operations and screening requirements make the business harder to reproduce than shipping software alone. Its operating model also avoids the cost of placing aircraft or a large truck fleet on its balance sheet.

The AI layer has a practical role. ClearJet's models select parcel routes across multiple airlines and delivery providers. Guggenheim says ClearJet is also developing agents that can automate rating, booking, tracking and responses to delivery problems. A weather disruption, for example, could trigger a switch to another flight or connecting city instead of leaving a shipment tied to one carrier's network.

Guggenheim told Crunchbase News that ClearJet is profitable, has more than tripled revenue year over year and is approaching $100 million in annual top-line revenue. Those financial figures have not been independently verified.

Adjacent platforms such as CargoAi, cargo.one and Freightos' WebCargo focus largely on digitizing freight procurement, quotes and bookings. ClearJet is pursuing the operational middle mile for domestic parcels, where it competes for volume handled by UPS, FedEx, USPS and regional carrier networks.

Each additional airport and carrier can give ClearJet more routing options while adding dependencies across flight schedules, security screening, airport handling and final-mile delivery. Guggenheim's bet is that software can coordinate those operations well enough to give retailers an alternative to handing their entire parcel operation to a national carrier.