Donkey
The AI-native trading company: factory prices, delivered, one number
About Donkey
Donkey is the AI-native trading company. Upload a buying list and we land the whole container at one locked, delivered price, tariffs included. You buy from Donkey: one contract, one company responsible for everything between the factory floor and your door. Our own people check the cartons before the factory gets paid, and the balance is due when the goods are accepted at your dock. Small businesses buy imports through three or four middlemen, each adding 15 to 30 points, because none of them can fill a container on their own. Big enough to buy pallets, never big enough to buy the box. Quotes float with freight, FX and tariffs and live 15 to 30 days. A trading company is rooms of people on the phone with factories, forwarders and brokers. Donkey runs that as one engine. It finds the real factory behind the customs record, stacks duty line by line, packs the container on weight and cube, and returns one number that holds from signature. Next comes the shared container: small buyers fill one box together at container prices, and every container earns better factory terms for the next one. Team in San Francisco and Wuhan, English and Mandarin. If your business buys pallets of anything imported, send us your buying list.
Founders
Benjamin Martindale
Founder
Prev founded Prelude OS: 31 paying Chinese factory customers cold-acquired in 39 days on the ground in Guangzhou; cash-flow positive. Advised heavy-equipment giants Sany and Sinoboom on overseas expansion. Featured on Mango TV, China's largest media station: factory-floor interview segments and a named 13-minute personal profile. Ran a Toronto marketing company: $4M closed for construction clients in 6 months. Fluent Mandarin. Finance at Rotman Commerce, UofT; dropped a credit short.
Minghao Tan
Founder
Co-founder & CTO. Donkey buys factory-direct in China and sells delivered to US importers. Customs records are public. We read them, flag the trading company markup, and quote the same parts straight from the factory that makes them. QC on the floor before the factory gets paid. I build the data side: parsing raw customs filings, separating real factories from shells and forwarders, and the software the whole trade runs on. donkey.trade