Deep Ellum Founder Builds a North Texas Tech Empire One Zip Code at a Time

FreightLocal, a last-mile logistics company founded in 2021 and headquartered on Commerce Street in Deep Ellum, crossed 400 full-time employees this spring — a benchmark its founder set publicly at the Dallas Regional Chamber's annual summit in January. The company hit that number four months early.

The timing matters. Dallas entered July 2026 with a commercial real estate vacancy rate hovering around 19 percent in the Central Business District, according to data tracked by CBRE's Dallas office, while the Metroplex's overall unemployment rate sat at 3.4 percent as of May — tight enough that competition for skilled warehouse and operations talent has driven starting wages at distribution hubs above $22 an hour. FreightLocal is paying $24 at its Stemmons Corridor sorting facility and has posted another 80 openings on its careers page as of this week.

From a Garage in Garland to a Lease on Commerce

Webb launched FreightLocal out of a rented warehouse bay off Northwest Highway in Garland, betting that the explosion of e-commerce returns — notoriously expensive and inefficient — could be handled regionally rather than funnelled back through national carrier hubs in Memphis or Louisville. The pitch was simple: keep the package in Dallas, solve the problem in Dallas, charge less. Early clients were small online retailers in the Design District. Within 18 months, the company had signed contracts with three mid-sized manufacturers in Irving's Las Colinas corridor.

The move to Deep Ellum in March 2024 was deliberate. Webb wanted proximity to the tech talent coming out of the University of Texas at Dallas's Erik Jonsson School of Engineering, and he wanted the brand association that comes with one of Dallas's most visible entrepreneurial neighbourhoods. The Commerce Street lease — roughly 12,000 square feet across two floors of a renovated 1940s brick building — runs through 2030.

The North Texas Commission, a regional economic development group, flagged FreightLocal in its Q1 2026 watch list as one of twelve homegrown companies most likely to cross the $50 million annual revenue threshold before the end of the decade. Webb has not disclosed current revenue, but the company closed a $17 million Series B round in February, led by Dallas-based Silverton Partners, which previously backed supply chain software firm Körber in its Southwest expansion.

What FreightLocal's Growth Signals for the Broader Market

The story is not just about one company. It reflects a structural shift in how North Texas businesses are thinking about logistics after the supply chain turbulence of the early 2020s. Large national carriers raised rates sharply in 2023 and 2024, pushing mid-market retailers toward regional alternatives. FreightLocal landed squarely in that gap.

Dallas's geographic position accelerates everything. The city sits within a one-day truck drive of roughly 48 million consumers across Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Arkansas and New Mexico — a catchment that national competitors rarely prioritize for dedicated regional infrastructure. FreightLocal opened a second sorting hub in Fort Worth's Alliance corridor in April, its first facility outside Dallas County, and is scouting space in Frisco for a third site that would serve the booming northern suburbs.

For job seekers, the practical picture is clear: FreightLocal is running weekly hiring events every Tuesday at its Stemmons facility, 2800 Stemmons Freeway, through the end of August. The Dallas Workforce Solutions office at 1655 North Stemmons has listed the openings in its regional portal since May. Roles range from route coordinators at $24 an hour to software engineers in the high-$90,000s annually, with full benefits starting day one.

Webb is scheduled to speak at the Dallas Entrepreneur Center's July 22 forum at the Perot Museum of Nature and Science — one of the few public appearances where he typically discusses strategy. That session is already sold out, which probably tells you something about how closely the city's business community is watching what happens next on Commerce Street.