Smart shipping startup Freightos raises $44m led by Singapore Exchange
Jerusalem startup will help the exchange explore development of financial instruments for the shipping industry
Shoshanna Solomon was The Times of Israel's Startups and Business reporter
Freightos, a Jerusalem-based startup that aims to make international shipping smarter and more efficient, said Monday it has completed a $44 million series C funding round led by the Singapore Exchange (SGX). The money raised will help the developer of the world’s first online marketplace for international freight to expand its activities.
New and existing investors in Freightos joined the round, including General Electric Ventures, Israel Cleantech Ventures (ICV), OurCrowd and Aleph VC, bringing the total amount raised to date by the startup to $94.4 million.
Freightos, which uses data and technology and a global network of over 1,200 logistics providers to make shipping a real-time, more transparent and digital industry, said its website today allows price comparisons, instant bookings, online shipment management, tracking and communications. There are over one million instant freight quote requests every month, the startup said in a statement.
The Freightos global rate database also drives the Freightos Baltic Index (FBX), the world’s most comprehensive and up-to-date container freight index, in collaboration with the Baltic Exchange which is part of the SGX group.
“The meteoric growth of the Freightos marketplace and success of our platform for freight rate management and digital sales shows that importers and exporters are looking for radically better freight services, while carriers and forwarders are eager to deliver by leveraging technology,” said Zvi Schreiber, CEO and founder of Freightos, in the statement.
Together with Freightos, the SGX will explore the development of financial instruments to bring to shipping the transparency, agility and risk-mitigation that other industries already enjoy, the statement said.
“Freightos is at the forefront of a new wave of solutions for price discovery and digital marketplaces in global freight — an industry at the heart of the global economy,” Michael Syn, head of Derivatives at SGX, said in a statement. The idea is to work with Freightos to develop risk management tools and services, “building Singapore’s unique position in the trade ecosystem, to bridge the physical and financial markets.”
Founded by Schreiber, Freightos is incorporated in Hong Kong.
