Most merchants in South Korea track their international shipping logistics via email until your cargo safely reaches its destination. This includes all administrative processes, from shippers to importers, and covers logistics, customs, charges, and transportation booking.
portlogicsa South Korean digital freight forwarder that offers a shipping management system based on robotic process automation, wants to help merchants track international shipping logistics and get shipment status updates, by digitizing the process with your software tool.
Portlogics CEO Hyoung-chul Choi is a serial entrepreneur who first noticed the inefficient way of tracking international logistics when he ran his first startup, YLP, a half-mile logistics startup that South Korean telecommunications company SKTsubsidiary of Mobility T-Map acquired in 2021.
During the pandemic, the price of shipping was constantly fluctuating, so carriers were unable to anticipate freight rates. Realizing the urgency with which the freight forwarding industry needed to digitally transform, Choi and three other co-founders started Portlogics that same year, developing a web-based freight forwarding and business order management system for merchants who now they can use if their products are being delivered. shipped on a ship, or transported by road or rail.
More than 26 companies now use Portlogics’ software tool, Choi said, adding that they include large logistics companies and carriers such as GS Global and hyundai biolandwhich produces materials used in cosmetics and health supplements.
That kind of traction has allowed the Korean startup to receive $1.6 million (2 billion won) in pre-Series A funding from investors including K2G Fund and strategic investor GS Global, owned by the Korean conglomerate GS Holdings.
Portlogics, which now has 19 employees (six in R&D), will use the new capital to further develop its platform, including hiring additional employees.
The startup also plans to introduce artificial intelligence and machine learning that can make sense of the data the team has been collecting and better empower it to estimate shipping costs and book electronically, Choi explained. In addition, Portlogics is in talks with B2B SaaS security companies to help protect clients using its software and strengthen its own data security measures, Choi added.
Portlogics is currently focused on the South Korean freight forwarding industry, but intends to open offices in Southeast Asia and the US after 2024, Choi said, noting there is plenty of market share left to capture. .
According to an estimate by the research firm Allied Research, the The global market for digital cargo transportation is projected to rise to $22.9 billion in 2030up from $2.92 billion in 2020.
“Global supply chain logistics and management have been reorganized [due to rising tension between the U.S. and China], and more companies are relocating to the US by building chip and battery factories,” Archi Kong told TechCrunch. “In this paradigm shift, more Korean suppliers are participating in global supply chain management ecosystems, and it turns out that freight forwarding transactions from South Korea to the US and around the world are increasing. . Therefore, K2G Fund believes that it is a good time for there to be significant growth opportunities for South Korea-based freight forwarding companies.”
