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HomeSuccess StoryFreightBro Success Story: For a Smooth Freight Forwarding Experience

FreightBro Success Story: For a Smooth Freight Forwarding Experience

FreightBro Success Story 

FreightBro successstory In a world, where everything is accessible on the screen touch of the smartphones, it wouldn’t be a surprise if we had a technology that made the logistics process swift and easy as a fiddle. One such initiative is FreightBro founded by Raghavendran Viswanathan, Mohammed Zakkiria, and V Anand Babu in the year 2016. FreightBro is an intuitive digital platform that enables forwarders to procure rates faster, reduce inefficiencies, boost sales, make data-driven decisions and provide a seamless customer experience.

Read the full article to know more about FreightBro, Founders & Team, Funding & Investors, Future Plans, Awards & Recognition, and its Business Model and many more.

FreightBro – Company Highlights

  • Startup Name-FreightBro
  • Headquarter-Chennai 
  • Cofounders-Raghavendran Viswanathan, Mohammed Zakkiria & V Anand Babu
  • CEO-Raghavendran Viswanathan
  • Sector-Freight Technology
  • Founded-October, 2016
  • Parent Organization-FreightBro Logistics Pvt. Ltd
  • Website-freightbro.com

FreightBro – Recent News

Jan 2020 – FreightBro Becomes the First Indian Company to Integrate Maersk Spot on its Digital Platform. FreightBro now allows to book container space online with Maersk Spot APIs

Oct 2019 – FreightBro becomes first Indian startup to join Digital Hub Logistics Hamburg

Jun 2019 – FreightBro started to digitize UAE’s freight and logistics industry. FreightBro Signs MoU With The National Association of Freight and Logistics, Dubai

FreightBro – About & How It Works?

FreightBro is an online freight marketplace where we provide end-to-end digital solutions to shippers and freight forwarders. We aim to equip the forwarders with latest freight rate automation tool which not only enables them to generate instant freight rates but also allows them to get competitive freight quotes, online.

As SaaS (Software as a Service) based company, FreightBro offers web and mobile-based applications to forwarders & 3PLs which can digitize their key processes like sales, procurement, operations and give an end to end visibility to their customers. Digitization here refers to the automation of the manual and repetitive tasks that increase overall efficiencies and reduce logistics costs considerably. FreightBro platform impacts an approximate reduction of 50% of sales costs and 70% of operations costs.

FreightBro – Target Market

The entire logistics market is estimated at 4.3 Trillion which includes 700+ billion 3rd party logistics service providers & 150+ billion freight forwarders. Top 50 players hold major market share. Freight Forwarding is a 150 billion dollar industry globally. The Indian logistics Market size is 17 million TEU. There has been an approximate 10 percent growth year on year for the SME Market and a steady introduction of small and medium-sized players in the industry. Therefore, the demand for digitization is increasing and thus poses a promising potential for growth.

FreightBro – USP

FreightBro is trying to solve issues regarding inefficiencies & speed in the logistics and freight forwarding industry that have never been addressed before. The time taken from inquiry to quote to book to actual cargo movement to visibility & data insights isn’t smooth and comes with major inefficiencies. Multiple communication channels are involved and activity as basic as procuring rates essentially comprises of multiple emails, phone calls or complex spreadsheets. Workflow automation is very much required in everyday operations and here is where FreightBro steps in. This provides real-time visibility and information, data standards and predictive analytics for businesses. FreightBro’s solutions help save 70% time, 50% cost that further increases sales by 30%.

The FreightBro team believes in enabling the forwarders to grow and stride the digitization wave in the industry rather than disrupting the ecosystem or wiping freight forwarders off. Therefore FreightBro aims to emerge as an enabler of change and not a disruptor in the ecosystem.

FreightBro – Founders & Team

Raghavendran Viswanathan, V Anand Babu, and Mohammed Zakkiria. A. are the co-founders of FreightBro.

Raghavendran Viswanathan | CEO, FreightBro

FreightBro CEO Raghavendran Viswanathan, is responsible for strategizing and managing the team at FreightBro. With his expertise in technology and logistics, he aims to solve the freight forwarding industries’ complex challenges. Before FreightBro, Raghavendran was the Business Development Manager at Panalpina, a Swiss company and one of the world’s leading providers of supply chain solutions. Before Panalpina, he was the Territory Manager at DHL handling diverse responsibilities. He has earlier worked at Vodafone and HCL Technologies in technical roles.

A veteran in the logistics industry, Anand was associated with AP Moller Maersk Group, a leading logistics company, for over 25 years. Anand has also been a part-time faculty at the Indian Institute of Logistics and was actively involved in social causes as the President of the Rotary Club of Chennai for a significant period.

Before FreightBro, Mohammed held the position of Sales Head of Cargo Partner, responsible for top-line growth including direct sales and strategic initiatives. He has also been associated with leading organizations such as Panalpina, DHL, and Damco in the past.

Currently, FreightBro’s employee strength is 70+ between Mumbai and Chennai offices.

FreightBro – How It All Started?

Mr. Viswanathan always wanted to have a business of his own. His career in the logistics sector was an unplanned one and happened by chance post his MBA. Working with DHL and Panalpina gave him an understanding of the logistics and freight forwarding industry and the nuances of the business. His ex-colleague, Mohammed whom he met at Panalpina and now the current partner of FreightBro, played a major role in its inception. After analyzing the business implications and a meeting with Anand Babu (also a current Co-founder at FreightBro), this magnanimous entrepreneurial journey began.

Ideation and prototyping happened together. In B2B SME space, the customers would like to see the product rather than listening to an idea. Hence they went with the first cut of working product to their first customer and the willingness to pay for the skeleton or just the concept was the proof of the pudding.

FreightBro – Name, Tagline & Logo

Freight forwarders were called FreightBrokers / FreightBrokerage firms in the past. FreightBro is a short form of Freight Broker that just stuck with all the key members as a catchy and relevant title.

The logo is a representation of the digital elements of 1 and 0 as i and o connected by a curve which can also be interpreted as a connection between input and output in a digital context. The colors used are Blue, Orange, and Black each of them representing the ocean, air, and surface respectively.

FreightBro – Business & Revenue Model

FreightBro is a cloud-based SaaS platform and has a pay per user model. It can also work on a per-bill value model.

FreightBro – Partnerships

FreightBro partnered with Port Of Wilhelmshaven, Germany’s only deep-water port situated between the river Ems and Western, as their official digital partner to facilitate trade and digital transformation of shipping. Port Of Wilhelmshaven is the first port to be a part of FreightBro’s official partner ecosystem that consists of all major shipping lines, transporters, insurance companies, trade, and finance entities. It is a significant central transshipment location for bulk commodities. The partnership promises both of them access to each other’s market and connection with stakeholders in respective countries.

Also, they have recently joined the Digital Hub Logistics, Hamburg as the first Indian Startup to join the network of German startups and corporates.

FreightBro – Startup Challenges

Since they do not have direct competition and the product isn’t a regular ERP convincing the industry the need or rather creating a need for it as a solution for logistics way forward was an evident challenge. To convince that this product would be imperative for the survival of a Freight Forwarder without using it in the first go was a challenge. The benefits of the platform can only be understood after a freight forwarder has used it firsthand which was evident from the fact that after one Freight forwarder started using it, the word of mouth marketing worked.

FreightBro – Competitors

There’s no direct competition to FreightBro in the market but that doesn’t mean that it operates in a monopolistic market. There are players like iContainers solutions SL, COGO Freight Pvt Ltd, Cargomatic to only name a few that provide similar and other kinds of services.

FreightBro – Awards & Recognitons

FreightBro has been listed in NASSCOM 10000 Startup-2016 and CIBA- Centre for Incubation and Business Acceleration and Startup India-2017.

Won E-commerce Startup Award at 10th South-East India Cargo & Logistics Awards 2018 (Chennai)

Digital Transformation Award – Finalist at by Lloyd’s Loading List Global Freight Awards 2018 (London)

Best SaaS Solution of the year-  4th Indian ISV Awards under Startup category

FreightBro – Future Plans

They started with bootstrapping mainly. The initial capital came from promoters, friends and family. FreightBro has grown 100 percent quarterly to date. From a bootstrapped startup to a million-dollar revenue in two and a half years, they have come a long way. And they plan to continue working on their IP to ease the workload for freight forwarders and save their time.

FreightBro – FAQ’s

What is FreightBro?

FreightBro is an intuitive digital platform that enables forwarders to procure rates faster, reduce inefficiencies, boost sales, make data-driven decisions and provide a seamless customer experience.

Who is the founder of FreightBro?

Raghavendran Viswanathan, V Anand Babu, and Mohammed Zakkiria. A. are the co-founders of FreightBro.

What services does FreightBro provide?

FreightBro offers web and mobile-based applications to forwarders & 3PLs which can digitize their key processes like sales, procurement, operations and give an end to end visibility to their customers.

Who is the CEO of FreightBro?

Raghavendran Viswanathan is the CEO of FreightBro. He is responsible for strategizing and managing the team at FreightBro.

Which is the targeted market of FreightBro?

The entire logistics market is estimated at 4.3 Trillion which includes 700+ billion 3rd party logistics service providers & 150+ billion freight forwarders.