Most retailers in South Korea maintain observe of their worldwide delivery logistics by way of electronic mail till their cargo safely will get to its vacation spot. This contains all the executive processes, from shippers to importers, and covers logistics, customs, fees and transportation reserving. 

Portlogics, a South Korean digital freight forwarder that gives a robotic course of automation-based forwarding administration system, needs to assist retailers observe worldwide delivery logistics and get standing updates on shipments, digitizing the method with its software program instrument. 

The CEO of Portlogics, Hyoung-chul Choi, is a serial entrepreneur who first seen the inefficient solution to observe worldwide logistics when he ran his first startup, YLP, a middle-mile logistics startup that South Korean telco SKT‘s subsidiary T-Map Mobility acquired in 2021. 

Throughout the pandemic, the delivery value continuously fluctuated, so shippers couldn’t anticipate the cargo charges. Realizing how urgently the freight forwarding trade wanted to be digitally remodeled, Choi and three different co-founders began Portlogics that very same yr, growing a web-based commerce order administration and freight administration system for retailers that they will now use whether or not their items are being shipped on a ship, or transported by street or rail.

Greater than 26 firms now use Portlogics’ software program instrument, Choi stated, including that they embrace massive logistics companies and shippers like GS World and Hyundai Bioland, which produces supplies utilized in cosmetics and well being dietary supplements. 

That type of traction has enabled the Korean startup to obtain $1.6 million (2 billion gained) in pre-Sequence A funding from traders, together with K2G Fund and strategic investor GS World, which Korean conglomerate GS Holdings owns. 

Portlogics, which now has 19 staff (six in R&D), will use the brand new capital to additional develop its platform, together with by hiring extra staff. 

The startup additionally plans to introduce synthetic intelligence and machine studying that may make sense of the info the outfit has been amassing and higher empower it to estimate e-booking and delivery prices, Choi defined. As well as, Portlogics is in talks with B2B SaaS safety firms to assist it shield the purchasers utilizing its software program and bolster its personal knowledge safety measures, Choi added. 

Portlogics at present facilities on South Korea’s freight forwarding trade however intends to open places of work in Southeast Asia and the U.S. after 2024, Choi stated, observing that there’s a lot of market share left to seize.

In accordance with one estimate by the analysis agency Allied Analysis, the world digital freight forwarding market is projected to extend to $22.9 billion in 2030, up from $2.92 billion in 2020. 

“The worldwide provide chain administration and logistics have been reshuffled [due to rising tension between the U.S. and China], and extra firms are reshoring the U.S. by constructing chip and battery factories,” stated managing associate of K2G Fund Archi KyoungRok Kong. “On this paradigm shift, extra Korean distributors are collaborating in world provide chain administration ecosystems, and it seems that freight forwarding transactions from South Korea to the U.S. and globally are getting increased. So, K2G Fund believes that it’s a nice time there can be sizable upside alternatives for freight forwarding firms primarily based in South Korea.”