Korea’s Portlogics makes international shipping easier for merchants with software tool • TechCrunch
Most sellers in Korea track their international shipping logistics via email until their goods arrive safely at their destination. This includes all administrative processes, from shipper to importer and includes logistics, customs, fees and shipping reservations.
Portlogicsa Korean digital freight forwarding company that offers a robotics-based forwarding management system, wants to help merchants track international shipping logistics and receive notifications. status updates on shipments, digitize the process with its software tools.
Portlogics CEO, Hyoung-chul Choi, is a serial entrepreneur first noticed an inefficient way to track international logistics when he ran his first startup, YLP, a mid-range logistics startup whose telecom company Korean pine SKTsubsidiary of T-Mobile Map acquired in 2021.
During the epidemic, freight rates fluctuated, making shippers unpredictable. Realizing how urgent the freight forwarding industry needed to be digitally transformed, Choi and three other co-founders started Portlogics that same year, developing an order and shipping management system. web-based merchandise for merchants that they can now use whether their goods are in transit or not. transport by boat, or transport by road or rail.
More than 26 companies are currently using Portlogics’ software tool, Choi said, adding that they include major logistics companies and shippers like Global GS And Hyundai Biolandmanufactures raw materials used in cosmetics and health supplements.
That kind of traction helped the Korean startup get $1.6 million (2 billion won) in pre-Series A funding from investors, including K2G . Fund and strategic investors Global GS, which is owned by GS Holdings of Korea.
Portlogics, which currently has 19 employees (six in R&D), will use the new funding to further develop its platform, including hiring more staff.
The startup also plans to introduce artificial intelligence and machine learning that can understand the data the outfit has collected and better empower it to estimate the cost of electronic bookings and shipping, Choi said. explain. Additionally, Portlogics is in talks with B2B SaaS security companies to help them protect customers using its software and strengthen their own data security measures, Choi added.
Portlogics currently focuses on South Korea’s freight forwarding industry but plans to open offices in Southeast Asia and the US after 2024, Choi said, noting that there is still a lot of market share to be captured.
According to an estimate by research firm Allied Research, The global digital freight forwarding market is predicted to grow 22.9 billion USD in 2030up from $2.92 billion in 2020.
“Global logistics and supply chain management has been reshuffled [due to rising tension between the U.S. and China]and more and more companies are moving back to the US by building chip and battery factories,” said K2G Foundation managing partner Archi KyoungRok Kong. “In this paradigm shift, more Korean suppliers are participating in the global supply chain management ecosystem, and it turns out that freight transactions from Korea to the US and globally are increasing day by day. the higher. Therefore, the K2G Foundation believes that this is a great time to have many upside opportunities for freight forwarders based in Korea.”
