SECURES $12m FUNDING ROUND TO POWER DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION FOR FORWARDERS

Freightify said it empowers freight forwarders by providing rate automation solutions to digitize their rate procurement, rate management and quotation processes with ease. The platform allows any forwarder to create a digital storefront to serve their customers better. In addition to this, it includes track and trace solutions that help freight forwarders in getting the live location of vessels and automated milestones within seconds. Freightify’s platform allows freight forwarders to procure, manage and quote freight prices (including all possible ancillary charges) in less than 2 minutes.

Customer numbers and revenues have tripled in the last 12 months, with the freight rate management platform now used by over 200 freight forwarding companies providing global logistics services across 45 countries

Freight rate management platform Freightify has secured a US$12 million Series A funding round, to help accelerate its growth and “power digital transformation of freight forwarders” through the technology group’s suite of products.

Freightify’s platform, with rate management and quoting capabilities, is now used by over 200 freight forwarding companies providing global logistics services across 45 countries, empowering freight forwarders to procure, manage and quote freight prices in less than 2 minutes. Customer numbers and revenues have tripled in the last 12 months, with the company expanding its customer base in Europe and North America.

It highlighted that global freight forwarding is a $300 billion industry that facilitates the movement of cargo from one place to another through a series of manual and legacy processes. Freightify’s freight rate management platform is solving the complex challenges facing freight forwarders and helping them to do more business faster at lower costs.

New functionalities

Freightify had previously announced a $2.5m seed round in July 2021, and the US $12 million raised in its latest funding round, will help launch new functionalities and deliver on a strong and expanded product roadmap, expand the sales presence globally, build channel partnerships, strengthen their marketing to drive growth and increase their brand awareness globally as they expand into new geographies and segments, the company said.

The round was led by Sequoia Capital India with participation from TMV and Alteria Capital. The round also includes returning investors Nordic Eye Venture Capital and Motion Ventures.

Founded in 2016 and based in Singapore, Freightify initially started as a marketplace for freight forwarders to conveniently search, book and track freight. This experience in automating sea-freight paved the way to a SaaS pivot.

Today, Freightify’s platform, with rate management and quoting capabilities, is able to empower freight forwarders to procure, manage and quote freight prices – including all possible ancillary charges – in less than 2 minutes. These customers have reported reducing processing time by more than 70% and a substantial cost saving in doing business.

Increase in retained business

The company said some customers deploy a Freightify white-label platform and have reported an increase in win ratio by more than 20% and a very noticeable increase in retained business. This success has seen revenues at Freightify triple in the last year as they have attracted large numbers of the top 100 freight forwarders around the world.

It stressed that the company’s founder and CEO, Raghavendran Viswanathan has deep experience working in logistics, supply chain and freight management with companies including DHL and Panalpina. The company’s management and senior staff come from backgrounds including SaaS startups like Freshworks and GoFrugal, logistics tech startups like Fourkites and Trimble, shipping lines like Maersk and MSC, Large forwarders and logistics companies like CON-LINQ ApS, Dachser Denmark and Wiz as well as Big 4 consulting firms like BCG.

Less time on manual tasks

He added: Freight forwarders using Freightify save more than 70% of the time spent on manual tasks and legacy processes, while halving the operational costs to do business.

Mayank Porwal, VP of Sequoia India, said the freight forwarding industry is a cornerstone of the global trade economy and despite the massive size, much of the industry remains constrained by manual processes and runs on paper, excel sheets and phone calls. Freightify, a vertical SaaS platform, is solving this problem by helping freight forwarders automate rate management and make every day operational workflows fast and efficient so that they can focus on serving their customers and growing their business. We are glad to be a part of this journey with Raghav and the team at Freightify.

Viswanathan added: Various marketplaces around the world are attempting to become the Amazon of services for freight forwarders, which will help. We believe in empowering the freight forwarders and are taking the Shopify route by selling a SaaS product to enable them to manage and create their own communities.

Expanding rapidly

Looking ahead, Viswanathan added: We have been expanding rapidly across Europe, Australia and key regions in Asia pacific, and are currently expanding in North America. We have a highly skilled product and engineering team that can deliver on a strong product roadmap. Sales people on the field with deep experience in the freight industry. We are building out a strong marketing function that can drive growth.

For too long, freight forwarders have been restricted to spreadsheets and legacy processes to do business. We set up Freightify to remove the heavy lifting of manually providing quotations, accepting email/telephonic bookings, managing documentation, coordinating and tracking shipments. Freightify solves these challenges by giving them and their customers a live pricing platform like the ones used by travelers to compare airfares, showing real-time rates on a single screen. Freight forwarders are like the travel agents for global trade, however, air travel is not as complicated as global trade. Supply chains require experts to manage cargo throughout the entire lifecycle and freight forwarders play a vital role in greasing the wheels.

Raghavendran Viswanathan, CEO, Freightify

Existing investor at Freightify, Nordic Eye’s Investment Partner and Manager, Ib Drachmann added: We have been impressed by the common vision of the company to democratize technology for the freight forwarding ecosystem. We are happy to see the scale at which Freightify has been growing, adding new logos globally and strengthening their product capabilities. Hence, we are doubling down on backing Freightify.

Freightify was established in 2016 with the vision to enable digital transformation of freight forwarders of any size”. It has a team of 200+ logistics professionals from Europe, the USA, and India that aim to empower freight forwarders to go digital by providing plug-and-play technologies and services for the entire logistics value chain.