London-headquartered Qargo, a transport management solution in the logistics industry, has snapped £11 million in Series A funding. The round was led by Balderton Capital (invested in trawa and Payflows).
The new funding will be used to launch its solutions in new markets, develop the product, and strengthen the engineering team to keep up with its fast-growing customer base.
What challenge does it tackle?
The logistics industry faces challenges, including rising operating costs, demands to decarbonise, increases in fuel prices, and a growing wave of cyber attacks, leading to lower margins. Over the past year, nearly 500 haulage companies collapsed in the UK alone under these pressures. Companies must streamline operations and automate manual processes to improve profitability to succeed. Qargo’s cloud-first SaaS platform integrates seamlessly with customers’ systems, serving as their operating system.
All-in-one transport management solution
Founded in 2020 by Adriaan Coppens, Joeri de Turck, and Sander de Wilde, Qargo’s solution addresses the needs of logistics companies and empowers them to achieve a more profitable and sustainable future.
Its AI-powered platform allows companies to automate their workflow processes up to 10 times faster than traditional tools, auto-import PDFs, and automate address lookups to make route planning and deliveries easier. The planning algorithm automatically combines loads into optimal journeys that minimise distance, duration, and carbon emissions.
With this solution, Qargo’s customers can reduce the number of empty miles with empty or unfilled trucks producing more emissions than all international flights combined. It also enables logistics companies to provide a great customer experience thanks to a state-of-the-art customer portal and deep integrations with shipper systems, so they have real-time visibility into transit for peace of mind.
In March 2024 alone, Qargo’s software enabled 175,000 journeys, averaging more than 3,000 trucks a day, and its customers processed more than £35 million in invoiced revenue.
How does it benefit users?
Qargo has over 140 customers across Belgium, Ireland, the Netherlands, and the UK, including logistics market leaders Altrea Group and Uniserve Group. A UK customer, Anglia Freight, has used this solution to achieve an annual saving of over 200,000 miles, cut routes by over 20 minutes by vehicle per day, and secure new contracts.
Adriaan Coppens, co-founder and CEO of Qargo, said: “Road transport is the backbone of European commerce and there’s no reason why it should be run on decades-old software. We’re proud that we can offer a secure cloud-based solution, with AI-based automation in an affordable subscription model that has helped our customers drive efficiencies in their business. Qargo is processing tens of millions in revenue and has become a true partner to the transport companies which are the backbone of many sectors. We’re delighted to partner with Balderton to power our growth and look forward to taking Qargo to the next level.”
Rob Moffat, partner at Balderton Capital, said: “Logistics is a $5T market globally but is often overlooked by software companies. Most companies in the sector are still using incredibly dated software that does not meet their needs, and working around this with whiteboards and calls. What we love about Adriaan, Joeri, and Sander is that they are outsiders to the industry, having previously built a successful software business OTA Insight, but have completely immersed themselves in transport management software. They have built a modern SaaS that their users spend all day using and really love. I have never before heard customer testimonials as positive as Qargo’s – their customers are really emotional about how Qargo improves their working lives. What’s more, the significant impact Qargo can have on carbon emissions, by reducing empty truck miles and improving asset utilisation, is really important to us.”
What do we think about Qargo?
As the concern about the environment is increasing, the £11 million funding raised by Qargo offers AI-powered workflow automation that helps customers reduce emissions. It also offers a great customer experience to users.
