BlueCargo, the logistics SaaS platform that optimizes the entire container workflow from port to warehouse, just announced it raised $11 million in new funding led by Soma Capital and Left Lane Capital, bringing the total amount raised to $15 million. This new round will allow the company to expand its geographic footprint in North America, invest in its core technology, and continue attracting top talent in the areas of product and engineering, industry experts and business leaders.
“Pre-covid, companies didn’t have an appreciation of the detailed costs of drayage. This has changed as companies are looking to streamline their operations and want to know the true cost of drayage. BlueCargo is the only platform that can help monitor, forecast and mitigate accessorial fees: demurrage, detention, and per diem. In 2022 alone, we saved one of our customers Forrest Logistics, a freight brokerage, more than $5 million in fees,” explained Alexandra Griffon, CEO of BlueCargo.
BlueCargo connects any importer, logistics provider, or drayage carrier on its platform to move cargo on time at the ports and decrease demurrage and per diem fees.
Instead of navigating multiple, scattered pieces of information, BlueCargo provides container level tracking, audit trail visibility and documentation, in one single window connected to all of North America’s busiest container ports. BlueCargo’s proprietary algorithms aggregate hundreds of different sources of information to only showcase the most reliable data and, for the first time, empower operators to adapt in real time. Containers flow from port to first-mile destination faster, more reliably, and cost-effectively.
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Today, 1,200 drayage trucking companies are using BlueCargo to schedule their daily container pick ups and returns on its platform, making it the largest operational drayage carrier connected network in the United States.
The Los Angeles and New York-based startup was founded by two female entrepreneurs originally from France, Alexandra Griffon (Chief Executive Officer) and Laura Theveniau (Chief Product Officer) who graduated from the prestigious Silicon-Valley based accelerator Y Combinator, that previously backed Flexport, Convoy and Shipamax in the logistics space.
Laura and Alexandra met during their studies in data science, artificial intelligence and entrepreneurship at UC Berkeley in 2018, located close to the Port of Oakland. They discovered back then the painful lesson that everyone learned after Covid disruptions: ports are where all supply chains converge (around 90% of traded goods are carried over the waves), but they are also the biggest black box and bottleneck, resulting in safety stocks, frozen capital and billions of dollars lost on inefficiencies, detention and demurrage fees.
One year later, Alexandra and Laura decided to launch BlueCargo, drawing on their insider experiences working at various terminal operators and terminal operating systems in the United States and Europe. BlueCargo’s vision is to shed light on the port terminal and drayage blackbox.
“The pandemic exposed significant deficiencies in global supply chains and inadequacies in the outdated manual systems used by shippers and carriers alike. Alexandra and Laura’s experience as port terminal operators and data scientists uniquely positioned them to solve these pain points with an end-to-end SaaS solution” said Alicia Garabedian, Investor at Left Lane Capital. “We’re excited to support BlueCargo’s mission to empower logistics businesses of any size with the software and data to digitize global trade.”
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“Alexandra and Laura bring a unique innovative view on making an efficient port supply chain” said Mir Faiyaz, Partner at Soma Capital. “We’re confident that the ‘why now’ has never been more apparent, with supply chains facing secular challenges around labor availability, and cascading blockages, which add to the need to develop systems that promote transparency and data availability. BlueCargo’s mix of product expertise, and focus on customer experience, provide a compelling argument for them to capture the massive opportunity ahead. In two years, BlueCargo has grown from a 4 person to a 35 person team while revenue and users grew exponentially.”
BlueCargo is up to no small task when the industry is lacking standards, data sharing and interoperability. Shippers can find out where their products were lost overboard days or weeks after an incident occurred, while dispatchers rely on phone calls and text messages to know the gate schedules and ask the terminals for exemptions.
This $11 million new funding round will be deployed to roll out the BlueCargo platform across any North American shipment, double its fully in-house US-based engineering team and continue building its core technology – BlueCargo Connect™.
The company is grateful to be on the journey with all its early customers and experienced business angels and investors such as Mike Roth, Left Lane Capital, Soma Capital, Cathexis Ventures, EXPA, SpringTime Ventures and HyperGuap, among others.
The coming years present new challenges and objectives such as preparing for growing trade volumes, reducing greenhouse emissions and change in regulation – starting with the Ocean Shipping Reform Act of 2022 and shippers being directly involved in accessorials billing processes. It is the right time for drayage and logistics companies, brokers, freight forwarders and shippers to ensure they have the right partners, technology and tools to adapt, like BlueCargo.
