FreightHub, the European digital freight forwarder, has raised $30 million in Series B financing. Leading the round is Rider Global — a venture fund said to be founded by logistics experts — along with Maersk Growth, the corporate venture arm of container shipping giant A.P. Moller-Maersk.
Existing investors Northzone, Rocket Internet’s Global Founders Capital (GFC) and Cherry Ventures also participated. I’m told the London-based investment firm Unbound, founded by Shravin Mittal, significantly expanded its stake too.
Operating in the freight industry, an antiquated market that is ripe for digitalisation and as a result has attracted a plethora of well-funded startups, FreightHub is setting out to compete with and replace traditional freight-forwarding companies that typically rely on legacy IT systems and cumbersome and manual processes.
Described as a fully fledged freight forwarder, the Berlin and Hamburg-based startup offers transport services for sea, air and rail freight, built on digitized processes — from booking, communication, data exchange and document management to supply chain optimization.
Last year, off the back of its $20 million Series A, FreightHub says it heavily invested in solutions for digital collaboration between customers, partners and suppliers and expanded the interface functions for its system integration capabilities. The company also expanded its service portfolio, including obtaining an IATA license for air freight services.
“Our forwarding solution offers more transparency, reliability and ultimately time and cost advantages for large and mid-sized organisations,” says FreightHub CCO Michael Wax in a statement. “Today, we serve some of the most well-known German brands and grew our volumes again 3x year over year.”
Claiming more than 1,500 customers — including well-known companies such as Home24, Miele and Viessmann — in addition to existing locations in Berlin and Hamburg, FreightHub recently opened its first Asian office in Hong Kong and acquired a sea freight forwarder specialised in Asian imports.
“Our recent growth trajectory has confirmed the potential that our digital solutions can realize for both our customers and FreightHub’s internal processes,” adds FreightHub founder and CEO Ferry Heilemann. We will use the fresh capital to further develop our digital service offering and to expand our presence in Asia.”
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