NEWSLETTER
Creating a startup that competes with its old employer can be risky. Apple, for example, once demanded a former chips design executive who founded his own chips startup in a case that was abandonment in 2023.
A recent case that involves Unicorn Flexport logistics and a new competitor formed by two former employees sheds light on these risks.
Flexport is demanding the couple alleging that they stole thousands of their documents along with their source code to create their own rival startup, Freightmate ai.
Both startups use technology to automate complex logistics and shipping processes.
Flexport says he believes that Freightmate Yingwei Zhao's operations downloaded more than 70,000 Flexport confidential documents after Freightmate agreed to form Freightmate with the now CEO Bryan Lacailade, Flexport said in The demandwhich was presented last week in a California court.
Flexport states that Zhao took measures to hide his clues, such as using the unknown mode in his browser to copy a list of more than 1,000 Flexport clients. The demand alleges that Zhao also downloaded the Github Flexport source code in its USB unit.
Freightmate admitted to having been in possession of some Flexport files, but said the files were “inadvertently retained” and did not access or use for Freightmate, according to the demand.
Flexport declined to comment. Freightmate did not respond to a request for comments.
Flexport states that the recent growth promoted by Freightmate would have been “practically impossible” without information that insists was stolen. It is demanding by unpalified damage and a court order of the court, which could be used to prevent Freightmate from using the supposedly stolen data.
Flexport is based in San Francisco and was valued at $ 8 billion in a 2022 financing round. More recently increase A $ 260 million round provided by Shopify in an assessment not revealed in 2023.
Freightmate is headquarters near Seattle and raised a round of seeds of $ 5 million in January 2025 directed by The VC firm of the state of Washington Fuse Capital. Its round of the seed, whose quantity was not revealed, It was led By Winschoff Ventures.
