It is just over a year ago that Berlin-based cargo.one, a platform for booking and marketing air freight capacity, was incepted by Moritz Clausen, Mike Roetgers and Oliver Neumann. The
three came up with the idea of offering what they term as ‘the first booking platform of its kind offering and booking dynamic freight rates.’
The company has in the meantime moved two steps further in firming up their position in the market.
Seed financing fixed with three companies
The cargo.one executives have revealed that they have been successful in fixing a so called “seed-loan” of €2.8 million (US$3.2 million) through a consortium led by Stockholm-based Creandum and
the Berlin-based Point Nine Capital as well as Lufthansa Cargo also taking a minority share in the company.
Seed financing is usually done by companies who may not have all the means necessary to solely fund their initial start-up activities. The financing is either in the form of a loan or an equity
purchase. In cargo.one’s case, it is an equity share for the investors. With this move cargo.one state that ‘they will have the means to further develop its technology for the digital
distribution and booking of air freight and to optimally meet the high demand of more airlines and forwarders.’
The two equity companies will now hold a 22 percent share in cargo.one, but the majority shareholding will still be in the hands of the three company founders.
Lufthansa Cargo steps in with 15% share
The German freight carrier which has been supporting cargo.one since its initial start-up, has become a minority investor by taking a 15 percent share in the company. Neither party is revealing
how much of the combined investment of €2.8 millon is LH Cargo’s share. In early 2018 the German carrier also invested in another technology start-up company, Fleet Logistics who are based in
Portland, USA.
LH Cargo’s CEO, Peter Gerber, stated that: “cargo.one is another important step towards the digitisation of our industry. We are impressed with the technology and user-friendly product and we are
also driving digitisation in our industry through cooperation with startups and financial investments such as that in cargo.one.”
CargoForwarder Global today (5 December) asked cargo.one spokesperson, Annika Ledeboer, how the company intends to invest the fresh cash flow. She stated that this will primarily be used to
encourage more airlines to use the cargo.one booking platform. This way more routes and additional flights can be offered to forwarders. There are plans she says, for cargo.one to grow their
product range which is presently only available for general cargo. DGR is next on the list, with others to follow.
Co-founder Oliver Neumann rounds it off by stating that: “With this investment, we can take another big step towards making cross-airline distribution and booking of air freight accessible to all
airlines and forwarders.” The final goal is for the set-up of a real time digital booking infrastructure.
cargo.one is confident that they will be adding more international airlines as partners during the coming months.
We will follow this development closely.
John Mc Donagh
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