GE Ventures, the strategic investment arm of industrial conglomerate General Electric, has led a $25m series B extension for China-registered online shipping marketplace Freightos.
Founded in 2011, Freightos operates an online marketplace for air, ocean and trucking freight services that allows users to choose a freight forwarder by factors such as price and transit time. It has so far registered more than 10,000 users.
The company also supplies specialised software that can automate the pricing and routing of goods as well as the invoicing process.
The funding took the total raised by Freightos to $50m and follows the initial $14m in series B capital supplied by Aleph, Annox Capital, Israel Cleantech Ventures (ICV), OurCrowd, MSR Capital and Sadara Ventures in September 2015.
Annox Capital, Aleph, ICV and OurCrowd had previously contributed to a $7.6m round closed by the company in 2014.
Zvi Schreiber, founder and CEO of Freightos, told Global Corporate Venturing: “With $19 trillion dollars of goods shipped around the world by air, ocean and land every year, international freight remains a huge – but very manual – industry.
“General Electric is defined by its vision to be the leading digital industrial company, which makes digitalised logistics a necessary infrastructure.
“Freightos is bringing this massive industry online and is proud to have GE Ventures onboard for the ride. My personal connection with GE is also another reason I am so pleased; General Electric acquired a previous company which I managed a few years ago.”
– Image courtesy of Freightos