Freight rate management SaaS platform, Freightify, has raised $12 million in Series A funding led by Sequoia Capital India, with participation from TMV and Alteria Capital as well as existing investors Nordic Eye Venture Capital and Motion Ventures. The round involves a mixture of equity and debt.
It will use the funding to strengthen product offerings and add new functionalities, expand sales presence globally, build channel partnerships, strengthen marketing to drive growth, and increase brand awareness globally as it expands into new geographies and segments. The firm will also be actively hiring across geographies, especially Chennai.
“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,” said Mayank Porwal, VP, Sequoia India.
“Freightify, a vertical SaaS platform, is solving this problem by helping freight forwarders automate rate management and make everyday operational workflows fast and efficient so that they can focus on serving customers and growing their business,” he added.
The company has previously raised $2.5 million in funding, bringing the total to $14.5 million raised so far.
Freightify’s SaaS platform allows freight forwarders to procure, manage, and quote freight prices (including all possible ancillary charges) in less than two minutes. Forwarders can create a digital storefront to serve customers better. It includes track and trace solutions that help freight forwarders in getting live locations of vessels and automated milestones within seconds.
At present, more than 200 freight forwarding companies providing global logistics services—across 45 countries—use Freightify to digitise their business.
Headquartered in Singapore with a development team in Chennai, Freightify was founded in 2016 by Raghavendran Viswanathan, who has worked in logistics, supply chain, and freight management with companies such as DHL and Panalpina.
Raghavendran said his mission is to democratise technology for freight forwarders. “We solve their challenges through our comprehensive SaaS platform, giving them and their customers a live pricing platform like the ones used by travellers to compare airfares, showing real-time rates on a single screen.”
Freightify has been expanding rapidly across Europe, Australia and key regions in Asia Pacific, and is currently expanding in North America.