FreightTech set for AI revolution

This article is the second of three on the landscape of venture capital and FreightTech in 2025 and beyond. Click here for Part I.

In our prior analysis, we noted how private equity firms were cautiously optimistic for venture capital in 2025. Optimistic, because markets were due to benefit from the freeing of some much-needed liquidity as falling interest rates and aging unicorns stimulate exit activity. But cautious, because this forecast is predicated on the expectation that interest rates will continue to fall in the coming months. Yet this expectation could prove false if, say, tariff-centric trade policies spur inflation once again.

Suffice it to say, the VC landscape is far different today than it was during the 2020-21 boom.

2020-21: FreightTech’s cloud-seeded boom

FreightTech itself has changed similarly. While the sector remains one of the most attractive for VC — per analysis by Kearney, FreightTech accounts for 15% to 20% of global VC deal activity — it is attractive for different reasons now.

The technology driving the previous FreightTech boom might best be characterized as a shift from on-premise resources (like server rooms) to cloud computing, the cost of which fell dramatically in the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The pandemic drove hordes of new entrants into the sector, as consumers under government quarantine turned their federal stimulus into grist for the e-commerce mill. This dramatic shift in consumer behavior upended global supply chains and laid bare the underinvestment in FreightTech up to that point.

VC was eager to rectify that underinvestment: In 2020, VC spent $12.6 billion across 555 deals with FreightTech startups, with much of that money aimed at middle- and last-mile solutions to get goods to consumers’ doorsteps.

Yet 2020’s spending would ultimately prove to be chump change compared with 2021, when VC injected $41.3 billion — more than triple the previous year’s spree — into FreightTech across 1,203 deals.

As was the case with private equity more broadly, FreightTech suffered in 2022 from soaring interest rates and an inflationary environment that deterred investment for the next few years. Fundraising and exit activity slowed during this period, tying up liquidity into the bets already made.

All in on AI

Still, VC activity in FreightTech already began to gain momentum in the run-up to 2025. In the fourth quarter of 2024 alone, the value of supply chain tech deals shot up to $9.1 billion — thanks mostly to autonomous driving tech firm Waymo’s $5.6 billion round in the quarter.

Even excluding this outlier, however, the $3.5 billion in Q4 supply chain deal value marked a sequential gain of 155% and a yearly rise of 158%, according to analysis by PitchBook.

Coursing through the different segments within FreightTech, just as with cloud computing before it, are big bets on AI. Nearly every investor, large or small, still appears to have an appetite for AI.

Also like cloud computing, the cost of AI is quickly becoming a race to the bottom.

In January, the Chinese AI startup DeepSeek triggered a sell-off of U.S. tech stocks when it released its latest model. The model, DeepSeek R1, rivaled established competitors like ChatGPT in its capabilities but reportedly cost far less to create and is less memory-intensive to use.

AI is a natural pairing with some FreightTech segments like autonomous vehicles (e.g., Waymo, Aurora, Waabi) and driver safety (Motive, Samsara).

*Kearney categorizes various FreightTech segments by their popularity and average return-on-investment.*

But AI has also revitalized some of the more mature FreightTech segments, such as fleet management and TMS (Platform Science, Mercury Gate).

At the same time, AI is helping some segments withstand a seismic shift in cultural priorities. Under the Biden administration, sustainability-focused companies were rewarded with government funding, like the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act of 2021 or the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022.

Needless to say, such green initiatives have found little favor with the curren t Trump administration.

AI entitles certain segments of FreightTech, like digital freight matching, to boast sustainability as a knock-on effect — and not the primary selling point — of their software. Load optimization would thus be the main draw, though investors who are still passionate about climate action could be enticed by the promise of reduced carbon emissions.

Finally, AI has enabled the development of entirely new segments in FreightTech.

Take, for example, AI-powered software that is being marketed to brokerages as a digital customer service representative: FleetWorks, CloneOps and HappyRobot are some of the leading startups in this category. These platforms aim to assist brokers in finding freight, covering loads and boosting margins by automating phone calls and optimizing workflows.

Though burgeoning, VC interest in this technology has already been profound. In December 2024, HappyRobot closed a $15.6 million Series A funding round led by Andreessen Horowitz — by far the largest VC firm with $42 billion in assets under management.

Deliverr co-founder launches ‘AI teammate’ for logistics, raises $25M

Augment, an AI-driven logistics platform, announced Tuesday it has raised a $25 million seed funding round from 8VC. The company, founded by Harish Abbott, has created an “AI teammate”, Augie, designed to organize operations for logistics operations.

Abbott’s journey to founding Augment was deeply rooted in his experience in logistics and technology. The initial stages of his career at Amazon involved developing fulfillment software, which gave him critical insight into complex logistics networks. Abbott later co-founded Deliverr, a fulfillment platform designed to help small merchants compete with Amazon’s shipping capabilities. The company’s success culminated in a $2.1 billion acquisition by Shopify.

After exploring the potential of large language models, Abbott recognized that logistics professionals spend most of their work time handling routine tasks like email, phone calls and data entry.

“These tasks are very tedious and cumbersome. So we started to think about creating an AI teammate that looks no different than a virtual employee. … You can text them, you can email them, you can call them, and it starts to take this mundane work off your plate so you can focus on what truly matters, like relationships, negotiations and routing,” Abbott told FreightWaves.

Augie, Augment’s flagship AI product, is built to do just that. Unlike traditional automation tools that perform single tasks, Augie integrates with transportation management systems and communication platforms such as Slack, Teams and email. It is capable of managing complex workflows across front- and back-office operations, communicating across multiple channels, escalating issues when human intervention is required and collaborating with human team members to enhance productivity.

Augment’s Augie in Slack. (Photo: Augment)

“Our belief is that voice or email agents and other RPA [robotic process automation] tools are missing out on the big picture. Real work in this industry requires emails, calls, logging into multiple systems and sometimes collaborating with a person in finance or other departments. You need a solution that can take all this context and collaboration and get real work done. We are taking a very different approach with Augie. It is a teammate. It’s going to collaborate. It’s going to ask you when it needs help, it’s going to escalate when it needs to escalate,” he explained.

To develop Augie, Abbott and his team conducted extensive research, shadowing nearly 90 logistics professionals to fully understand the pain points and challenges they face daily.

“We partnered with Augment to build a multi-functional AI assistant, giving our team another tool to spend more time on value-added parts of their jobs and delivering a better experience to our partners. The Augment team has exceeded our expectations as a partner, shadowing our reps in house, learning the business, and building solutions that make sense for our operation,” said Matt Pyatt, founder and CEO of Arrive Logistics, in the news release.

With seed funding, Augment plans to accelerate the development of Augie and expand its engineering and customer success teams. The company’s immediate priorities include expanding its engineering teams in San Francisco and Toronto. Additionally, Augment will build a dedicated customer success team in Chicago to work closely with clients, refine Augie’s functionality and provide ongoing support.

Justin Hall, who has experience at Primo Logistics, YRC and GlobalTranz, including a past executive-in-residence role at 8VC, has joined Augment as chief commercial officer to support the company’s growth strategy and partnership relations.

“After 25 years in logistics—running 3PLs, fleets and tech companies—I’ve seen so much waste in this industry drain time, crush morale and limit margins. That’s why we built Augie, an AI teammate that doesn’t just automate tasks but tackles complex workflows, while making data more accessible and actionable,” Hall told FreightWaves in an email.

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Benchmark diesel price drops for a third straight week

For the third week in a row, the benchmark average retail diesel price fell, down 14.8 cents a gallon over that period.

The latest price published by the Department of Energy/Energy Information Administration is $3.549 a gallon, down 3.3 cents a gallon from the prior week. It’s the lowest price since a $3.503 price published on the final Monday of 2024.

The retail price of diesel is lagging the continuing fall in the futures price of ultra low sulfur diesel on the CME commodity exchange so it may have room to fall further.

On the CME’s ULSD contract, the price fell last Thursday to $2.1622 a gallon. It rose slightly Friday before taking a 3.72-cents-per-gallon jump Monday to $2.2038. All crude and product prices rose Monday on the back of a U.S. attack on Houthi positions in Yemen. While Yemen is not a significant oil producer, the strike was seen as a proxy for an attack on Iran, as the Houthis have significant backing from Tehran.

Those sort of temporary blips are not enough to lift a market that has been pushed down by the drop in almost all asset classes over recent weeks: equities, commodities and crypto.

But those are short-term reactions. The monthly report of the International Energy Agency, published last week, painted a picture of a supply/demand balance that is likely a force for lower prices.

The IEA report said it is projecting that global oil supply will be about 600,000 barrels a day more than demand in 2025. If the OPEC+ group goes ahead with its plan to begin unwinding some of its production cuts in April, reductions that have been in place since 2023, the IEA sees the possibility of the supply/demand imbalance growing by another 400,000 barrels per day.

On the demand side, the IEA said, “the macroeconomic conditions that underpin our oil demand projections deteriorated over the past month as trade tensions escalated between the United States and several other countries.”

The agency’s latest demand figures have “underwhelmed.” IEA reduced its estimates on growth in the fourth quarter of last year and this quarter by a small amount. It held its growth projections for full 2025 at 1 million barrels a day, only marginally higher than the 830,000 that it projected oil demand grew in 2024. A figure that is sub-1 million is extremely rare.

Supply growth this year outside of any increase in OPEC+ will once again come from the U.S., Canada, Brazil and Guyana, in that order, the IEA said.

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Steel, aluminum tariffs may hurt auto industry, supply chain risk expert says

President Donald Trump said Sunday there won’t be exemptions on steel and aluminum tariffs and reaffirmed that additional import duties on everything from autos to lumber to appliances will go into effect on April 2.

“It’s going to be reciprocal — in other words, whatever they’re charging, we’re charging,” Trump told reporters on Air Force One on Sunday, CNN reported. “Then in addition to that, on autos, on steel, on aluminum, we’re going to have some additional tariffs.”

Trump was asked by a reporter if he would consider any exemptions on those tariffs, and he replied: “I have no intention of it.”

Trump’s 25% tariffs on all aluminum and steel imported into the U.S. went into effect on Wednesday, prompting Canada and the European Union to immediately retaliate by imposing duties on about $49 billion worth of U.S. goods.

Ted Krantz, CEO of Interos.ai, said tariffs on steel and aluminum could hit the U.S. automotive manufacturing industry hard. Arlington, Virginia-based Interos.ai is a supply chain risk intelligence company.

“Our data shows there’s 400,000 companies impacted, and 3% of that is manufacturing for the auto industry,” Krantz told FreightWaves in an interview. “We anticipate, just in terms of carry costs on vehicles, assuming … the $25,000 average cost, that’s an incremental almost $6,500 in additional costs that ultimately have to be passed on to the consumer.”

Krantz said the U.S. supply chain for steel, aluminum and auto parts made of rubber and plastics depends heavily on foreign imports.

Trump paused until April 2 across-the-board tariffs that had been set for March 4 on goods from Canada and Mexico that comply with the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement. However, Trump said he is considering imposing reciprocal tariffs on Canadian lumber and dairy products soon.

“The complexity of the supply chain is pretty interesting, because you’ve got our top sources for steel are China, then India, No. 1 and No. 2, respectively. Then there is a 20% combination of Mexico, Italy and Germany. Our dependency on those top five is very high in this sector,” Krantz said.

Trump imposed a 10% tariff on Chinese goods in February and doubled the rate to 20% on Tuesday. China has responded with up to 15% duties on U.S. foods such as beef, chicken and pork that began March 10.

“The China disruption is going to have a more prolonged, complex outcome,” Krantz said. “Thinking of other sources besides China for, you know, our import and export opportunities, or companies headquartered here in the U.S., in other Asia-Pacific areas of opportunity outside of China, I think that is probably a more likely scenario. I do think that the spiciness geopolitically with China will take longer to play out and could actually have more edge than even what we see with Canada and Mexico.”

Much of Trump’s trade policy is aimed at bringing more foreign investment into the U.S., creating more factories and jobs for Americans.

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., the world’s biggest chipmaker, recently agreed to invest $100 billion in the U.S.

While changing supply chains and manufacturing locations quickly will be difficult, Krantz said, companies need to have alternate suppliers ready in case tariffs begin to disrupt their traditional logistics operations.

“Most of these big companies, they know their Tier 1 supplier, but they’re not as educated on Tier 2 or Tier 3,” Krantz said. “[Companies need] to start shifting and thinking outside of … Canada, Mexico and China. What other alternative sources are there for some of these supplies? I do think that’s going to be a big focus for the Fortune 1000 companies.”

Flexport lawsuit accuses Freightmate AI of copyright infringement

Supply chain management company Flexport has filed a lawsuit against Freightmate AI alleging former Flexport employees now heading the logistics software company stole tens of thousands of sensitive commercial documents.

The 23-page complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California on Wednesday, accuses Freightmate AI founders Yingwei (Jason) Zhao and Bryan Lacaillade of building their company on “information and documents brazenly stolen from Flexport.”

According to their LinkedIn pages, Zhao worked as a principal technical program manager at Flexport and Lacaillade was the company’s director of product management. Lacaillade left Flexport in April 2024, and Zhao left a month after.

Flexport’s complaint stated that months before the two left the company, they “secretly conspired to form a competing company in stealth mode.”

“Lacaillade left Flexport first to commence the company’s operations, while Zhao remained behind as a secret agent, to exfiltrate tens of thousands of sensitive commercial documents containing Flexport’s trade secrets,” Flexport stated in its complaint. “Zhao downloaded hundreds, sometimes thousands, of files per day onto personal USB drives or cloud storage, employing techniques to hide his tracks.”

The complaint alleges that days before Zhao left Flexport, he was established as Freightmate’s co-founder with Lacaillade and then downloaded its proprietary Flexport Platform source code.

“Within weeks, Freightmate launched a competing product,” the complaint stated. “Freightmate then boasted about ‘partnering with over three times the number of freight forwarders that [it] anticipated by this time,’ a feat virtually impossible to achieve so quickly without Flexport’s stolen information.”

Flexport stated Zhao and Lacaillade admitted to taking confidential documents without permission.

“They confessed to using Flexport documents to understand how generative AI digitizes shipping documents,” the complaint continued. “They admitted to retaining a complete backup of Zhao’s Flexport laptop, downloading Flexport data onto personal USB storage, and transferring files to a personal cloud. But Defendants were not fully forthright with Flexport. They refused to allow any review of Freightmate source code to determine the extent to which it is derived from Flexport’s proprietary information, claiming falsely that Flexport’s confidential files ‘were inadvertently retained and not accessed or used by Freightmate.’”

The complaint stated that Freightmate AI still illegally has Flexport’s intellectual property.

Flexport is suing Freightmate AI, Zhao and Lacaillade for trade secret misappropriation and copyright infringement. It is also suing Zhao and Lacaillade for breach of contract.

Flexport is asking the court to recover its property, award Flexport unspecified punitive damages and preemptively enjoin Freightmate AI from using or disclosing Flexport’s proprietary information.

U.S. District Court Judge Rita Lin was assigned on Monday to preside over the case after Freightmate AI declined on Friday to have the case seen before a magistrate judge.

Freightmate AI left stealth mode in June 2024. In late January, the company announced it had raised $5 million in investments to build its freight forwarding management system.

Flexport told FreightWaves via email it could not comment on ongoing litigation.

“We dispute Flexport’s claims and intend to vigorously defend ourselves in court,” a spokesperson for Freightmate AI told FreightWaves via email.

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‘Owner’ of fictitious logistics firm sentenced in $2.8M COVID relief scam

A freight-related Paycheck Protection Program loan scam wrapped up recently with the second of two convicted Ohio women receiving her final sentencing.

In March 2024, Lorie A. Schaefer, 63, of Westerville, and Latisha C. Holloway, 42, of Reynoldsburg, were indicted on charges of orchestrating a multimillion-dollar fraud scheme involving COVID-19 relief funds. They illegally obtained more than $2.8 million in PPP loans through falsified documents and fraudulent business claims.

Schaefer fraudulently applied for nearly $1.9 million in PPP loans by claiming an affiliation with the Flying Pizza restaurant chain, fabricating financial records to support her application. She used the funds for personal expenses, including $26,000 for liposuction, a $10,000 baby gift and over $900,000 for real estate. Schaefer also assisted Holloway in securing over $980,000 in PPP loans for a fictitious business, Jaguar Logistics LLC. Holloway, in turn, wired Schaefer $180,000.

Both women pleaded guilty to wire fraud and money laundering. Holloway was recently sentenced to 15 months in prison and ordered to pay over $1 million in restitution. In July, Schaefer pleaded guilty and is paying back at least $2.89 million and forfeiting more than $2 million in assets.

KAL Freight’s fallout 😡

KAL Freight’s financial collapse is heading toward a chaotic finish, leaving over 800 drivers and millions of dollars in cargo at risk of being stranded across the country. The Texas-based carrier, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, is now facing a “do or die” moment as creditors debate how to liquidate the company.

A rapid shift to Chapter 7 liquidation could mean immediate shutdown, cutting off fuel cards and leaving drivers abandoned with loaded trailers. Triumph Financial and Daimler Truck Financial Services, two major creditors, are pushing for a structured wind-down to prevent a logistical nightmare. They warn that an abrupt closure could lead to trucks and cargo scattered nationwide, exposing assets to loss, theft or destruction.

KAL Freight’s bankruptcy is more than just a financial collapse; related claims of fraud have rocked the trucking industry. Court documents suggest that the California-based carrier defrauded Daimler Truck Financial Services of nearly $40 million through a series of fraudulent asset transfers, fake purchases and unauthorized sales.

One of the most shocking accusations is that KAL Freight obtained $16.9 million from Daimler to buy 164 trailers that never existed. The company allegedly submitted fake certificates of title with recorded liens, all while making loan payments to maintain the illusion. Additionally, Daimler claims KAL Freight illegally moved 366 financed trailers to a Canadian affiliate, where they were sold or leased to third parties, and put an additional $20 million in assets at risk.

While some creditors push for a quick shutdown, others are demanding a controlled exit to avoid a Celadon-style disaster.

Verified Carrier locks down patent to combat fraud 📄

Verified Carrier is seeking a provisional patent (U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 63/766,249) for its innovative carrier verification process. The patent covers the company’s back-office system, which combines AI-driven automation with rigorous human verification to ensure carrier credentials are legitimate.

As freight fraud grows more sophisticated, Verified Carrier’s multilayered approach is gaining traction among top brokerages and even regulators. By leveraging extensive carrier data and direct third-party verification, the company is looking to set a new industry standard for fraud prevention. The system not only validates Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration data but cross-checks insurance, banking and business ownership records to detect inconsistencies before fraud can occur.

“Freight fraud is an industry-wide problem, and our verification process has proven to be a critical tool in fighting it. With adoption from some of the largest brokerages and recognition from regulators, securing a patent was the next step in ensuring our technology remains a trusted industry standard,” Alex Panfilov, founder and CEO, told FreightWaves.

Learn more about the company’s work in fighting fraud here.

Registration open for May Freight Fraud Symposium in Dallas 🎉

Be part of the solution that stops freight fraud in its tracks. Let’s cut through the noise and address this issue head-on!

Freight fraud has reached a crisis level, and it impacts everyone in the industry. It’s time for us to come together to address this critical problem and share best practices on how to mitigate it.

Join us on May 14 in Dallas at the Freight Fraud Symposium, where transportation executives, freight leaders and technology buyers will come together to discuss the issues we all face, share lessons learned and get insights on the latest technology to help us tackle this problem.

Space is limited, so register now to save your spot!

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February freight trends mixed, outlook ‘fraught with uncertainty’

A white sleeper tractor with a green ocean container

February data from Cass Information Systems showed a claw back of what was lost to weather in January, but uncertainty overhangs an already sluggish freight market.

Freight volumes snapped back in February, up 10.5% from January, but remained pressured compared to last year, down 5.5% year over year. Normal seasonality, a recovery from harsh weather in January and shippers importing goods ahead of tariffs were cited as catalysts behind the latest sequential change.

February shipments increased just 4.9% sequentially on a seasonally adjusted basis.

The report cautioned that February’s positive trend could unwind in March as trade policy uncertainty looms. March is historically the strongest demand month of the quarter. If normal seasonal patterns persist, the shipments index should be down between 3% and 4% y/y (an implied 2% sequential increase), the report said.

February 2025	y/y	2-year	m/m	m/m (SA)
Shipments	-5.5%	-9.7%	10.5%	4.9%
Expenditures	-4.6%	-23.4%	3.6%	-0.3%
TL Linehaul Index	1.9%	-3.6%	1.2%	NM

Table: Cass Information Systems (SA – seasonally adjusted)

Cass’ freight expenditures dataset, which captures total freight spend including fuel, increased 3.6% sequentially in the month (off 0.3% seasonally adjusted) but was down 4.6% y/y. Retail diesel fuel prices were off 9% y/y in the month.

With shipments off 5.5% y/y but expenditures down just 4.6%, inferred freight rates were likely 1% higher y/y in the month, “further aligned with the more modest increases in contract rates which seem prevalent these days,” the report said.

The inferred rate index was off 6.2% from January (down 4.9% seasonally adjusted), negatively impacted by a freight mix favoring lower-cost modes.

“After a 7% decline in 2024, freight rates are starting 2025 on track for low- to mid-single-digit increases in 2025,” the report said.

The Truckload linehaul index, which tracks rates without fuel and accessorial surcharges, logged a sixth straight sequential increase in February, up 1.2% from January and 1.9% y/y.

The dataset was down 3.6% on a two-year-stacked comparison, the smallest two-year decline since July 2023.

SONAR: The National Truckload Index (linehaul only – NTIL) *for 2025 (blue shaded area), 2024 (green line) and 2023 (pink line)*. The NTIL is based on an average of booked spot dry van loads from 250,000 lanes. The NTIL is a seven-day moving average of linehaul spot rates excluding fuel. To learn more about SONAR, click here.

“While the outlook is fraught with uncertainty, and freight demand will be challenged by tariffs, we highlight a silver lining for the for-hire freight market amid rising recession risk,” the report said. “Elevated uncertainty may be turning the tide of private fleet capacity additions after a long for-hire downturn.”

It said even if the lower nitrogen oxide emissions standards for 2027 don’t come to fruition, tractor prices could still increase by $20,000 per unit “if/when the USMCA exemption ends (currently paused until April 2nd).” That would result in a supply shock pushing freight rates higher, the report said. The USMCA is the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement on trade.

Data used in the indexes comes from freight bills paid by Cass (NASDAQ: CASS), a provider of payment management solutions. Cass processes $36 billion in freight payables annually on behalf of customers.

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Longer voyages, higher container rates power Evergreen Marine earnings

Evergreen Marine Corp. reported revenue climbed to $12.7 billion in 2024 from $8.4 billion a year ago, while net income more than tripled to $3.4 billion from $1.1 billion.

A buoyant market led Taiwan-based Evergreen (2603.TW), the world’s seventh-largest ocean container carrier, to order six 24,000-TEU (twenty-foot equivalent unit) liquefied natural gas dual-fuel container ships from shipbuilder Hanwha Ocean in South Korea.

Evergreen’s earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization grew to $5.7 billion from $3.1 billion y/y, while earnings before interest and taxes was $4.6 billion, up from $2.1 billion.
The liner operator did not disclose full-year container volumes.

Major shipping lines in 2024 saw billions of dollars in windfall profits on longer diversions away from the strife-torn Red Sea, which helped absorb capacity and boost rates, and from strong volumes on trans-Pacific lanes to the United States.

Evergreen is a member of the Ocean Alliance with Cosco of China, Cosco-owned Orient Overseas Container Line of Hong Kong, and France’s CMA CGM. The group is the third-largest of the shipping cooperatives, at 3.8 million TEUs.

Diluted earnings per share increased to $1.58 from 50 cents.

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Transflo releases next-gen workflow automation solution for carriers

Transflo on Monday unveiled its latest technology update for Workflow AI for Carriers, a back-office automation solution for document processing for the trucking industry. The update debuted at the Truckload Carriers Association’s annual event in Phoenix.

Lars Ward, vice president of automation solutions at Transflo, told FreightWaves that traditionally, tasks such as document management and invoice processing have been labor-intensive and prone to human error. Workflow AI looks to minimize inefficiencies by integrating AI into key operational processes. The solutions dashboard also provides real-time visibility into operational metrics and allows users to track document activity, compare load-to-document completion ratios and monitor exception resolution performance.

Workflow AI also helps address operation problems that affect cash flow management. Carriers can reduce invoice lag by as much as 80%, according to the company, through these automated workflows, leading to faster payment cycles. Current users have seen 75% no-touch document readiness for invoicing, saving some carriers over 15 hours per week in administrative tasks, according to Transflo.

“Running the back office is incredibly hard. The back office does not get the love it deserves, and we’re creating technologies to empower it. One way is considering the carrier’s speed to cash. We want to help our carriers get paid quicker, so we are incredibly focused on eliminating manual data entry and providing them with the best workflow automation,” Ward said.

He also described a differentiator for Transflo in document processing automation, pointing to its data volume. The company has seen over 800 million shipping documents annually, processing approximately $115 billion in freight bills. This vast dataset has enabled a higher degree of accuracy and reliability.

“We have been at the forefront of innovating with documents in our industry. When it comes to this product, we were incredibly thoughtful about how we rolled it out and made huge investments that were entirely focused on the outcomes for carriers,” he said.

Technology isn’t just about efficiency but about empowering workers and transforming how the freight industry approaches operational challenges. Ward noted that utilizing workflow automation tools offers small and midsize carriers, which may lack the resources for large back-office teams, a way to maintain the streamlined operations they have achieved.

“Our work helps to improve team morale by automating the manual work so teams can focus on the impactful work. That’s why we have always led in this space,” he explained.

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Yang Ming profit soars on Red Sea diversions, emerging Asia markets

The Red Sea crisis and emerging Asian markets helped Yang Ming Marine Transport Corp. to strong operational performance and profitability in 2024.

The Taiwan-based ocean carrier (2609.TW) in a release said full-year consolidated revenues totaled $6.94 billion, up from $4.51 billion in 2023. Net profit after tax surged to $2 billion from $153 million.

The positive results came as global container shipping saw a net capacity increase of approximately 3 million twenty-foot equivalent units in 2024. Despite supply growth outpacing demand, several factors helped absorb excess capacity, including vessel rerouting due to the Red Sea crisis and congestion at key ports. The company also benefited from robust economic performance in emerging Asian markets.

The first three quarters of 2024 saw favorable market conditions, with rising cargo volumes and freight rates. The world’s ninth-largest liner operator did not disclose full-year container volume.

Looking ahead to 2025, Yang Ming cited Alphaliner data forecasting a 5.7% increase in shipping capacity and a 2.5% growth in demand. Uncertainties persist, including potential U.S. tariff developments and ongoing security concerns in the Red Sea region. It also said European Union environmental regulations present new compliance challenges for shipping.

Yang Ming said it is implementing several strategic initiatives, including strengthening its core business and enhancing existing alliances; accelerating its regional route strategy and penetrating emerging markets; optimizing fleet deployment to improve operational efficiency; and advancing a vessel optimization plan for up to 13 new ships, including dual-fuel-ready and liquefied natural gas dual-fuel-fitted vessels.

The new vessels, ranging from 8,000-to-15,000-TEU capacity, are likely to be deployed in intra-Asia service as well.

The company declared a cash dividend of 23 cents per share.

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