Booking platform cargo.one aims for expansion after latest round of funding
17 / 12 / 2020
Cargo.one founding team
Online air cargo booking platform cargo.one has raised $42m in funding as it looks to expand in North America.
The series B funding round is led by Bessemer Venture Partners who are joined by existing investors Index Ventures, Creandum, Point Nine and Next47.
The portal said it is especially focused on growth opportunities in North America, where airlines have over the last few months seen cargo demand increase compared with a year ago.
Oliver Neumann, cargo.one managing director, said: “We will use the funds raised to build on our success in Europe, onboard more airline partners, grow our user base of freight forwarders globally, and deepen the expansion into North America and Asia.”
Michael Droesch, vice president at Bessemer Venture Partners, added: “The company has had a fast and successful start in Europe, and we are excited to support their expansion into North America, which represents a large and attractive market for cargo.one’s differentiated platform.”
Furthermore, the company will continue to develop tools that use data to let airlines offer more dynamic pricing, engage in better route planning and predict demand in volatile markets as well as adding more products for booking through 2021.
The investment comes on the back of a busy year for the platform. The last 12 months have been a challenging year for the air cargo industry with increased demand for efficiencies and cost savings from all parties.
This has resulted in increased use of digital solutions to drive efficiencies.
“In such a volatile market situation, and despite relying more heavily on air cargo to support their bottom line, airlines are struggling to distribute their capacity effectively, resulting in freight forwarders being unable to access vital cargo space,” cargo.one said.
Cargo.one managing director Moritz Claussen said: “Between 2019 and 2020, we increased our user base by 300% with 2,000 freight forwarding offices now using the platform in Europe to book real-time offers in the highly precarious market situation — in that time bookings have grown by more than 700%.
The platform has distributed more than 18m offers to freight forwarders, serving 347 destinations around the world, and has delivered shipments to 122 countries.
Meanwhile, it has processed annualized volumes in Europe of more than 110,000 shipments and 45,000 tonnes with 15 airline partners including Lufthansa Cargo, Finnair Cargo, Etihad Cargo and All Nippon Airways Cargo.
The news comes six months after an $18m Series A funding round.
