Copyright FreightWaves
“We’re not a broker. We’re a marketplace,” Neubauer said. “We’re a B2B marketplace. Any shipment you see on our exchange is going to be a real live shipment direct from a shipper. It’s either coming from an auction that owns a car or a dealership or the OEM themselves.” Founded in 2022, Auto Hauler Exchange aims to “remove the middleman” from vehicle transportation by creating a direct digital marketplace for automotive shippers and carriers. The company currently hosts more than 5,000 carriers and over 350 shippers, Neubauer said, allowing both sides to negotiate rates directly and manage transactions through AHX’s platform. Neubauer, who previously founded Service First Logistics, said the idea came from watching auto-hauling become oversaturated with brokers — a system he described as “chaotic and inefficient.” “One thing that I’ve always kind of been at odds with being on the brokerage side is you’re negotiating against your customer and your carrier at the same time,” Neubauer said. “Within our product, we have transparent pricing, our carrier pays nothing, they’re in the product, free of charge. And our shipper partners, they pay a transactional fee on every successful transaction, and they know what that fee is, it’s proprietary to each of them. We negotiate that with our shipper partners, and they understand what it costs for them to be in the product. But they also see the value, they see their costs going down exponentially, they see their dwell times decreasing, they see their interest rates decreasing.” The company secured $5 million in Series A funding earlier this year to expand its technology infrastructure and hire additional engineering and marketing talent Neubauer said AHX has been able to grow revenue and carrier participation even as tariffs and fluctuating vehicle demand disrupt the broader market. “OEMs are definitely getting squeezed with the tariff implications that have been enacted. But all in all, we’ve grown significantly this year,” Neubauer said. “I think when you go into markets like this, you have to find opportunities. And I think one of the biggest opportunities that came out of this market was the ability for our product to save our shippers money.” Auto haulers have been navigating a turbulent year. Publicly traded Proficient Auto Logistics recently reported “two markets in one quarter,” with weak volumes early in the year followed by a surge ahead of new U.S. auto import tariffs. At the same time, global carriers are seeing fewer imported vehicles to move following President Donald Trump’s 25% tariff on car imports. Amid that uncertainty, Neubauer said AHX remains focused on strengthening its digital infrastructure and continuing to help the auto hauling industry grow. “I think there’s great opportunities for mom and pop carriers if they can leverage themselves with the right partners.,” Neubauer said. “I think AHX is a great partner fit for the carrier community. They pick and choose who they want to work for. They can work for as many shippers that they want, and they can maximize their trailer capacity and create round trips. At the end of the day, it’s about making as much money off that truck as they can make.”
