In International Shipping News 10/02/2017
Xeneta (www.xeneta.com), the leading ocean freight benchmarking and market intelligence software platform, has raised $12 million in a Series B investment round led by London-based Smedvig Capital. Existing investors including Creandum and Alliance Venture also participated in the round. The financing will be used to fund Xeneta’s continued global expansion and to strengthen its product development and technology platform. Rob Toms, a Managing Director at Smedvig, will form a part of Xeneta’s board of directors. Smedvig will join Xeneta’s earlier investors Creandum, Point Nine Capital, Alliance Venture and Alden, bringing the total raised by Xeneta since 2012 to $20.5 million.
”We are excited to be backing and working with Patrik, Thomas and their team to continue their impressive growth. The business has already had a major impact in the $200bn+ container shipping market, and we are confident that Xeneta will continue to drive change in the ocean freight and related markets,” said Rob Toms, a Managing Director at Smedvig Capital.
“We were looking for a VC who shared our strategic long-term outlook. Shipping is not a fast-paced industry and Smedvig’s extended investment perspective plays very well with our strategy making them an ideal investment partner,” said Patrik Berglund, CEO & Co-founder at Xeneta.
“One thing that was particularly appealing about Smedvig was that their founding roots stem from the shipping industry. That coupled with their experience in scaling enterprise technology businesses in traditional industries globally made it a perfect fit for us,” said Thomas Sørbø, CBDO & Co-founder at Xeneta.
Xeneta has positioned itself as the leading container pricing platform and challenged the status quo of the traditional volatile shipping industry. By digitizing the crowdsourcing of ocean container prices it has created the most complete global container pricing index bringing pricing transparency to all stakeholders in international container trade.
“Xeneta is one of my favorite Creandum seed deals because from the very first meeting you could see such a massive potential in the team and in the opportunity to bring price transparency to global freight. Xeneta has developed phenomenally and we’re very happy to welcome Smedvig Capital as co-investors, as we share the founders’ long-term vision for the company,” said Fredrik Cassel, Partner at Creandum.
This was also echoed by Jan-Erik Hareid, Managing Partner at Alliance Venture noting that Xeneta has carved out a unique position in the container freight marketplace making it a one-to-watch company.
Founded in 2012 in Oslo, Norway, Xeneta is the largest ocean freight rate benchmarking and market intelligence platform. In just 2 years, Xeneta has grown in its database of contracted shipping rates from 2MN in 2015 to 23+MN in 2017, while increasing revenue by 200% in 12 months. Customers include global market leaders such as Kraft Heinz, Electrolux, Continental, Thyssenkrupp, Akzo Nobel, Brother International, in addition to the world’s leading suppliers in the automotive, chemical and retail industries. The company has offices in Oslo, Hamburg and establishing a presence in the U.S. east coast, currently New York.
In 2016, Xeneta was named Nordic Startup of the Year – Norway and Patrik Berglund, CEO, received the prestigious Lloyd’s List Innovation in Shipping Award.
Source: Xeneta
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