Spanish freight management company WebCargo has been acquired by Israeli Freightos and together they have become leaders in their sector.
WebCargo is bought by Freightos
WebCargo has developed software for air and ocean freight worldwide to optimise logistics management. Its tool, WebCargoNet, provides access to all air freight rates on the market and sends quotes to customers in real time. The startup has offices in Barcelona, Miami (USA) and Shenzhen (China).
Freightosis its competitor with Hong Kong-based Israel, which was created in 2012 and since 2012 has raised a total of $23.3M in 4 investment rounds, the last one in 2015. Freightos is more focused on land transport and has a platform that connects all players: customers, companies and freight forwarders.
The purchase of WebCargo is the first acquisition by the Israeli company, which will make it the largest company in the online freight management sector, a growing niche market in which new competitors are emerging.
Webcargonet will remain an independent company within Freightos, and its first objective is to introduce 'ebooking' for cargo, as other companies already do for passengers.
In the end, the time saved for the carriers means that the end user receives his or her iPhone sooner and for less money.
Spain's online freight management sector receives backing from investors
In addition to Webcargonet, there are several startups in this sector in Spain. Some of them have received quite large amounts of funding for a Spanish company.
Packlinkfor example, founded in 2012, has received a total of $23.5M, the latest round was received in September 2015 and is already operating in Spain, Germany, France and Italy.
Icontainers is an online shipping management platform that has received a total of $8M from investors such as Kibo Ventures and Serena Capital. The last round was received in June 2016.
Foreign competitors see Spain as an opportunity for growth
In 2016 we have seen several Spanish companies being bought by their foreign competitors.
As we have already mentioned in previous posts, Privalia has been bought by Vente Priveé, Olapic by Monotype, the Red Fridge by Just Eat e.t.c
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