Freightify Eyes Global Expansion With New Fundraise

Logistics tech startup Freightify has secured $2.5 Mn in its Pre-Series A funding round led by Nordic Eye Venture Capital, with participation from Tradeworks VC, Venture Catalysts, 9Unicorns and Blume Ventures through the VC’s Founders Fund. Existing investor Vinod Kumar Talreja also participated in the round. 

Founded by Raghavendran Viswanathan, Mohammed Zakkiria and V Anand Babu in 2016, Freightify offers a tech-enabled freight forwarding platform that makes it easier for small and medium businesses to set up an online storefront and manage shipping. With the latest funding round, the startup plans to expand into the US and European markets and invest to bolster its product portfolio, covering more stakeholders in the container supply chain.

Freight forwarding is a trillion dollar industry that comprises a vast network of freight agents, truckers, carriers, customs brokers, among others, that manage various legs in an international cargo shipment. Freightify (formerly FreightBro) enables digitalisation of global trade by providing freight forwarders of any size with white labelled rate automation solutions to digitise their rate procurement, rate management, and quotation processes with ease. The startup features a suite of pricing and sales tools for the ocean freight industry and already serves customers in over 10 countries. 

The current $215 Bn logistics industry in India is largely unorganised with tech platforms looking to improve the penetration of organised players from the current 10%-15%. Niklas Holck, CEO at Tradeworks.vc, said, “We invest in ‘digital trade enablers’ that drive trade through innovation by solving important problems in logistics and ecommerce. One of the important problems in this is the lack of structured commercial data that can be used across the freight forwarding value chain, from freight rate procurement, standardisation, automation & quotation to e-bookings and visibility.”

The Freightify store for MSMEs and SMBs is powered by data from various sources, including live prices from ocean carriers like Maersk, CMA CGM, Evergreen among others. At the same time, offline contract rates from other carriers are automated in real-time for easy comparison. Further, this can be easily integrated with the freight forwarders’ TMS systems for operations and fulfilment.

Between 2021-26 the freight forwarding industry is expected to grow at a steady CAGR of more than 4%. Currently, Freightify is competing with startups LogiNext, Cogoport, WOW Express, Emiza, etc., to gain a market share of the logistics tech segment in the country.