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Outlet profile

FreightWaves

U.S. center-right, industry trade

Owned byFirecrown, a trade-media company controlled by Craig Fuller (FreightWaves' founder), which acquired the FreightWaves media properties in early 2024 after spinning them off from the parent data company
FundingAdvertising and sponsorship revenue from trade-media properties; ongoing data-licensing relationship with SONAR (the former data arm, now a separate company); backed historically by venture capital from investors including Hearst Ventures and 8VC
On the administrationmostly neutral

Background

FreightWaves was founded in 2016 by Craig Fuller, a trucking-industry entrepreneur and son of a co-founder of US Xpress Enterprises, initially as a freight-market data and analytics platform headquartered in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Fuller built out a newsroom alongside the data operation, aiming to apply quantitative reporting to an industry he felt was underserved by the trade press. In 2018 the company launched SONAR, a subscription freight-data platform often compared to a Bloomberg terminal for trucking, which eventually became the company's primary revenue source. FreightWaves raised roughly $108 million in venture funding across multiple rounds, with strategic investors including Hearst Ventures and 8VC. In early 2024, the company separated its media properties—FreightWaves.com, American Shipper, and FreightWaves TV—into Firecrown, a broader trade-media group that Fuller also controls; the remaining data business rebranded as SONAR. Fuller's personal politics are openly pro-Trump: in November 2024 he publicly sought consideration for U.S. Secretary of Transportation, and he backed the administration's broadly pro-business direction; those views inform the outlet's general frame, though day-to-day news coverage of tariffs and freight regulation reads as largely factual and industry-pragmatic. Third-party bias assessor Biasly rates the outlet as 'somewhat conservative.' FreightWaves is widely recognized as one of the leading specialist news sources in the global freight sector.

Sources

  1. FreightWaves Inc. divesting media arm to focus on high-frequency data offering – FreightWaves
  2. Craig Fuller's Firecrown Acquires FreightWaves Media – A Media Operator
  3. SONAR drops FreightWaves name, announces move to new Chattanooga headquarters – Yahoo Finance
  4. CEO of Chattanooga's FreightWaves wants to be Trump's secretary of transportation – Chattanooga Times Free Press
  5. FreightWaves – Bias and Reliability – Biasly
  6. How FreightWaves Achieved $20 Million ARR by Blending Media with SaaS – Latka
  7. FreightWaves secures $20 million in Series B funding – FreightWaves
  8. Supreme Court curbs Trump's tariff powers, reshaping 2026 trade outlook – FreightWaves

Profile compiled 2026-07-29; refreshed when ownership, funding, or the administration changes.

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