Known
Dylan Dickman
Chief Executive Officer | Global sourcing, freight, inspections and customs brokerage | Dallas, Texas | Opened the HTS scan 27 July, call booked off the back of it
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Dylan Dickman is the CEO of Known, a Dallas based global sourcing and supply chain services company founded in 2021 and headquartered in the Continental Gin Building in Deep Ellum. Known sells five service lines, Source, Inspect, Ship, Plan and Customs, plus a supply chain financing product called Known Capital. Their client logos are oil and gas majors including ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil, Phillips 66, EOG Resources, Pioneer Natural Resources, Diamondback Energy and Ovintiv. Dylan was co-founder and COO before moving into the CEO seat, and his own calendar is the conversion point for the entire website.
Ripple is talking to Known because classification is not a side task for this business, it is a line item they invoice. Their customs page sells Customs Entry, HTS Classification, and ISF and AMS Filing, and they hold their own CBP filer code, NAX, which means they file entries under their own licence rather than white-labelling another broker. That is a meaningfully different conversation from the one Ripple has with an importer. Known is a third-party classifier, so an AI HTS classifier is not a cost line for them. It is either a margin lever on work their clients already pay for, or a product they can put inside the Known Platform and sell.
The honest one-sentence picture: Known is a customs brokerage selling classification as purely human expert work, running on a single licensed broker who is also the company's Controller, serving Fortune 500 energy clients on a steel and oilfield hardware commodity mix that sits squarely under Section 232 and Section 301, led by a CEO who has personally paid a tariff bill of more than $70,000 and is actively chasing duty refunds right now.
The Conversation So Far
What he has actually seen and said
- 23 June 2026. Outreach opened on LinkedIn from Jonny's account: "Dylan, I ran an AI HTS exposure scan on Known, it flags the misclass risk and where money's leaking. Can I send it over?"
- 1 July, 20:01 UTC. Dylan replied in two words: "please do!"
- 2 July, 08:41 UTC. We sent the scan at rippletech.co/known/, explaining that it breaks down where the classification cost sits, how it stacks with 301 and 232 tariffs on his clients' commodity mix, and what half of it looks like when an AI agent takes over. We offered to run one of his real invoices through the agent live on a call.
- 6 July. One nudge on LinkedIn: "Hey Dylan, did you get a chance to look through the scan? Anything jump out?"
- Mid July. Four outbound call attempts.
- 27 July. Tracking confirmed Dylan opened the scan. The call was booked off the back of that open.
He is warm rather than hot. He asked for the scan the same day, then took twenty five days to open it. He has not written a pain point down, so expect to do the diagnosis live on the call.
Company Profile Intel
Dylan Dickman
- Role: CEO, previously co-founder and COO
- Based: Dallas, Texas
- Before Known: Leon Capital Group, Titus Industrial, Merrill, UPS
- Education: Southern Methodist University, Cox School of Business
- Licences: FINRA Series 7 and Series 66, both 2017. He came from finance, not freight.
- Public voice: roughly 1,000 LinkedIn followers. Not a content-led founder, but he posts real numbers when he does.
Known
- Legal entity: Known Group Inc., a foreign for-profit corporation registered in Texas, active and in good standing
- Founded: 2021. Texas franchise tax responsibility began 25 January 2021.
- HQ: 3309 Elm St, Suite 330, Dallas TX 75226
- Offices: Dallas, Glasgow, Kuala Lumpur, Delhi, Guangzhou, Kolkata
- Headcount: sources disagree sharply, from 11 to 50 at one end to around 148 at the other. Do not quote a number.
- Second domain: known.dev, which redirects to gowithknown.com and is the staff email domain
Key intel
- Known holds its own CBP customs broker filer code, NAX. They file entries themselves. Verified against CBP's official Permitted Customs Brokers listing, 2,483 rows, published December 2025.
- Exactly one Known-affiliated name appears in that entire national list: Gabrielle Petrucelli, Dallas TX. She is also described as Known's Controller, and her background is accounting and tax at PwC, not trade compliance.
- No Head of Trade Compliance, Director of Customs or Classification Manager exists anywhere at Known, on the site, on LinkedIn, or in any third-party source.
- Their customs page sells HTS classification as purely human work: "Let our experts help you classify your products appropriately according to CBP regulation." There is no automation or software claim anywhere on it.
- Their own LinkedIn About section says: "Service is our specialty, the technology is just an added plus."
- Their own tariff blog post advises readers to engage "specialized trade software and data analysis tools". They have already endorsed the category in print.
Business Model
What they sell
- Source: strategic sourcing, supplier performance and category management
- Inspect: pre-shipment inspections, factory audits, material testing
- Ship: ocean, air and land freight with live tracking
- Plan: inventory, supply and demand planning
- Customs: customs entry, HTS classification, ISF and AMS filing
- Known Capital: supply chain financing on manufacturer deposits and final payments, repaid over 30, 60 and 90 days
How they make money
- They monetise the whole chain on one shipment: sourcing fee, inspection fee, freight margin, customs entry fee, and financing spread
- Nothing is priced publicly. Every path on the site ends at "Book a call with an expert", pointing at Dylan's own calendar
- Their platform is a visibility layer only: live tracking, SKU-level updates, arrival milestones, PO management. No compliance or duty capability
- No self-serve, no pricing page, no careers page. Growth is relationship-led and founder-sold
The structural point worth holding onto
Because customs sits inside a bundle rather than standing alone, a classification error does not threaten one invoice line, it threatens the whole client relationship. And because Known Capital finances the goods Known also classifies and clears, a duty bill triggered by a misclassification lands on a customer whose purchase order Known has underwritten. Classification accuracy is tied to their credit exposure, not just their service quality.
The Numbers
Read this first
There is no public revenue figure for Known. None exists on ZoomInfo, Growjo, Owler, Datanyze, Dun and Bradstreet, Crunchbase or in any press, and forwarder revenue includes pass-through freight and duty so it would say little even if it did. Nothing in this section should be quoted at Dylan as a fact about his business. The trade figures below are their own imports and are not a measure of the entries they file for clients.
Verified from primary sources
- CBP filer code NAX, one permitted broker, from CBP's own published listing
- Known Group Inc. active right to transact business in Texas, from the Texas Comptroller's open data
- Franchise tax start 25 Jan 2021, Texas registration 11 Mar 2022
- Six office locations across the US, UK, Malaysia, India and China, from their own LinkedIn
- Trademark "KNOWN", serial 97195511, filed Dec 2021, first use 15 March 2021
Estimated or contested, handle with care
- Headcount 11 to 50 or around 148, depending on the source. A large offshore inspection workforce would reconcile both.
- Own-name bills of lading, roughly 28 to 125 depending on how each platform counts, spanning October 2021 to July 2026
- Around 31 containers, roughly 589,000 kg where weight is disclosed
- No verifiable funding round. Zero SEC Form D filings. Treat as bootstrapped or lightly pre-seeded.
- Revenue: not estimable. Do not anchor one.
The signal that matters
Known's own imports are carbon and stainless steel flanges, forged flanges, hammer unions and pipe nipples, coming out of Indian forges through Mundra and Pipavav into Houston. HS chapters 73, 84, 87 and 94 are in play, with HTS 8431.43 cited on at least one shipment. That is a narrow oilfield hardware trade for their own account, and it sits directly under Section 232 on steel with Section 301 stacking wherever China origin appears across their client book. It proves they physically move freight and touch classified goods. It does not size their brokerage practice, and no public dataset can.
Pain Signals & Gaps
- CBP's Permitted Customs Brokers listing carries exactly one Known-affiliated entry: Gabrielle Petrucelli, filer code NAX, Dallas TX.
- The same person oversees Known's financial operations as Controller, so the individual legally accountable for every HTS code Known assigns splits her week with running company finances.
- Her career background is accounting and tax, Senior Tax Associate at PwC and accountant at a property investment firm, not trade compliance.
- No Head of Trade Compliance, Director of Customs or Classification Manager appears anywhere at Known.
- An AI HTS classifier here would take first-pass classification off a single licensed broker and turn her role into review and sign-off, so entry volume stops being capped by one person's calendar and the brokerage can grow the customs line without waiting on another licence.
- The customs page reads in full: "Let our experts help you classify your products appropriately according to CBP regulation." No AI, automation, accuracy or software claim appears on it.
- Known's own LinkedIn About states: "Service is our specialty, the technology is just an added plus."
- The Known Platform does claim technology, but only visibility technology: shipment tracking, SKU-level updates, arrival milestones.
- Their own blog post on US tariffs and origin requirements tells readers to engage "specialized trade software and data analysis tools", so they have endorsed the category in print.
- An AI HTS classifier here would give Known the one thing their customs page currently cannot claim, a classification service with speed and a documented rationale behind every code, which is a stronger thing to sell than "our experts will help you".
- Dylan posted publicly that he imported roughly $150,000 of product and received a tariff bill of over $70,000 on top of it, adding that these are not inflated numbers. That is close to a 47% effective rate on his own goods.
- He posted the moment CBP's CAPE tool went live: "CBP just confirmed the CAPE tool goes live Monday 4/20. If you paid IEEPA tariffs this past year, you can finally start getting your money back."
- CAPE lets importers or their licensed customs brokers bulk-submit entry numbers for IEEPA refunds. Known holds the licence, so refund recovery across their whole client book has to run through one person.
- He has also engaged publicly with content on Section 338 of the Tariff Act of 1930 and China supply chain disruption policy.
- An AI HTS classifier here would let Known re-run historic entries across their whole client book at machine speed to find recoverable duty, turning a refund window Dylan is already watching into a billable recovery service rather than a manual scramble against a deadline.
- Known's own import record is carbon and stainless steel flanges, forged flanges, hammer unions and pipe nipples out of Indian forges into Houston, with HS chapters 73, 84, 87 and 94 in play.
- Steel articles in chapter 73 sit under Section 232. Where China origin applies anywhere across their client book, Section 301 stacks on top.
- Their client base is oil and gas majors, where a single misclassified line on a repeat SKU replicates across every subsequent entry for that part.
- They published their own guidance article on navigating tariffs and origin requirements, so the exposure is understood internally. It just has no tooling attached to it.
- An AI HTS classifier here would catch origin and chapter 73 misclassification at the point of entry rather than at audit, on exactly the commodity mix where a stacked 232 and 301 error is most expensive to unwind.
- Known Capital funds manufacturer deposits and final payments, repaid in three equal instalments at 30, 60 and 90 days, with funding approved within 24 hours of order upload.
- It is operated by Known Group Inc. itself and no partner lender is named anywhere, which points to balance-sheet exposure rather than a pure referral arrangement.
- A misclassification therefore does not just create a duty bill for a client, it creates one for a client whose purchase order Known has underwritten.
- They monetise sourcing, inspection, freight, customs entry and financing on the same shipment, so a classification error threatens the whole bundle.
- An AI HTS classifier here would put a documented, reviewable classification rationale behind every entry on financed goods, which protects the credit decision as much as it protects the entry.
- Known runs its own filer code and files entries itself, which is the harder and more valuable model, and also the one that cannot be scaled by hiring generalists.
- The company operates across six countries with a large operational footprint, yet the licensed classification function has one name on it.
- Every conversion path on the site, across all five service lines, ends at "Book a call with an expert" pointing at the CEO's own calendar, so new customs volume arrives through Dylan personally.
- There is no careers page and no discoverable open roles, so there is no visible hiring answer to the capacity question either.
- An AI HTS classifier here would let Known say yes to entry volume they currently have to pace, because the constraint moves from how many classifications one broker can make to how many she can review.
Where the Classifier Adds Value
Known is a broker and a third-party classifier, not an importer. Classification is something they sell, so the value is never in saving their team time. It is in margin, capacity and product. These are the places it moves the needle.
Pass-through on the customs line
Classification is already a billable item on Known's customs page, so the client is already paying for it. Running the classifier underneath that line means the cost sits inside work that is invoiced, and the brokerage carries no net expense while the client gets the code back faster with a rationale attached. Nothing changes in how Known charges, only in what the client receives for it.
More entry volume without another licensed broker
The practical ceiling on Known's customs practice is one person's capacity to make and stand behind classification calls. With the classifier producing the first pass and the licensed broker reviewing and signing, the same licence supports materially more entries. That turns customs from a line they have to pace into a line they can actively sell against the energy client base they already hold.
White-label inside the Known Platform
Known already sells a platform, but today it only does visibility, tracking and PO management. Embedding the classifier gives them a compliance capability inside a product they own and control the client relationship for, which upgrades "the technology is just an added plus" into an actual product claim. This is the version worth more to Known than the service version, and it is worth opening on the call.
Duty recovery as a billable service
CAPE is live and Dylan is already tracking it, but bulk IEEPA refund submissions need someone to go back through historic entries and confirm what was classified and what was owed. Re-running a client's entry history through the classifier turns that from a manual review nobody has time for into a recovery service Known can price, on a window that is open right now.
Reasonable care, documented
CBP's standard is reasonable care, and the defence is the record of how a code was reached. A classifier that outputs the reasoning behind every code gives Known a consistent audit trail across every entry they file, which matters more than usual for a broker filing under its own code for Fortune 500 clients while also financing the goods.
Questions for the Call
Watch-Outs
Never pitch this as saving Known's team time
Classification is what Known sells. It is a named, billable item on their customs page. Any framing that sounds like "this replaces what your experts do" reads as "we automate away your product" and ends the conversation. The frames that work are pass-through, where their client pays and Known carries no net cost, capacity, meaning more entry volume on the same licence, and white-label, where Known sells it as theirs. The same applies to how the single-broker point is raised. Gabrielle is a real person doing two demanding jobs well enough that Known files under its own code, so the point is that the licence is a growth constraint, never that she is a weak link.
Three numbers not to say out loud
- Headcount. Public sources range from 11 to 50 at one end to around 148 at the other. Both are plausible for different reasons. Naming a number that turns out to be wrong costs credibility for no gain. Ask instead.
- Revenue. No estimate exists anywhere, and forwarder revenue includes pass-through freight and duty so it would mean little. Any number used will be invented, and Dylan will know it.
- Their entry volume. The public shipment counts range from 28 to 125 depending on the source, and they measure only Known's own imports, never the entries they file for clients. That figure is not public and must not be estimated.
Two affiliations that are unconfirmed
Phantom Shipping LLC and Flatland Holding LLC both appear alongside Known on bills of lading, Phantom as a notify party and Flatland on a shared importer record, and both are more active importers than Known's own name right now. No public document states any relationship and the addresses do not cleanly match. Treat these as a question worth asking if entity structure comes up naturally, never as a fact to assert.