Shipping giant Zim invests in startup Ladingo for buying large items online

Haifa-based shipping giant Zim Integrated Shipping Services Ltd. said Wednesday  it has made an investment in Israeli startup Ladingo, which aims to enable consumers to buy large items online via overseas delivery.

Ladingo has just closed a $1 million funding round, Zim said in a statement.

ZIM said it opted to invest in Ladingo “as a strategic move,” as the tech company “is positioned to lead a global consumer revolution” by enabling personal imports of large and bulky items to shoppers who purchase them from international online shops.

“Ladingo’s technological platform offers a transparent digital integration of the entire process,” Zim said.

Today, nearly all business to consumer (B2C) e-commerce purchases, estimated at $2.5 trillion annually, are shipped via air freight. This limits the products consumers can buy online to those that are low-weight and small in size, and limits the variety of products that online shops can sell to international customers.

With the investment, ZIM and Ladingo together seek to provide a technological solution to this problem, giving consumers the opportunity to buy large and bulky items like furniture, bicycles, fitness equipment, garden equipment, electronics  directly from overseas shops or manufacturers.

Ladingo, founded in January 2018 by Hagar Valiano Rips, Ruth Reiner and Guy Levi, has set up a smart container-sharing platform, using data-driven software that connects online retailers to buyers and ocean freight forwarders, enabling container sharing and maximizing container space, the founders say.

This container-sharing solution enables Ladingo to reduce shipping costs, enabling shoppers to buy any size product online from any location in the world, just as easily as they’d buy an iPhone cover from Ali Express, the startup claims.

“We believe that innovation and creative ideas will define the future of the logistics industry, especially that of maritime shipping,” said Assaf Tiran, VP of Global Customer Service at Zim, who is also responsible for the company’s digital solutions field in the statement. “Our support and investment in Ladingo are part of the greater Zim vision, one of openness and the promotion of technological innovation in all aspects of our operations. We see tremendous potential in Ladingos’ platform, providing a real breakthrough simplifying the complex supply chain process all the way to the end-user’s homes. We believe that developments like Ladingo will lead to a significant change in global trade.”

Ladingo is currently piloting with several customers in the United States, the statement said.

“Looking a couple of years ahead, we will all buy directly from sellers or manufacturers abroad – without any intermediaries,” said Hagar Valiano Rips, CEO of Ladingo in the statement. “Zim is not only investing in Ladingo’s technology, they are engaging in a fully synergistic investment, one that will lead to a revolution within the B2C world.”