California-based logistics SaaS platform BlueCargo has raised $11m so containers can flow faster through US ports.

The company optimises the entire container workflow from port to warehouse. The round brings the total amount raised to $15m.

This round should help the company expand its geographic footprint in North America, invest in its core technology, and continue attracting talent in the areas of product and engineering, industry experts, and business leaders.

The Los Angeles and New York-based start-up was founded by two entrepreneurs originally from France. Alexandra Griffon is chief executive officer and Laura Theveniau is chief product officer. They graduated from the Silicon-Valley based accelerator Y Combinator, that previously backed Flexport, Convoy and Shipamax in the logistics space.

“Pre-Covid, companies didn’t have an appreciation of the detailed costs of drayage,” said Griffon. “This has changed as companies are looking to streamline their operations and want to know the true cost of drayage. BlueCargo is the only platform that can help monitor, forecast and mitigate accessorial fees: demurrage, detention and per diem. In 2022 alone, we saved one of our customers, Forrest Logistics, a freight brokerage, more than $5m in fees.”

BlueCargo connects any importer, logistics provider or drayage carrier on its platform to move cargo on time at the ports and decrease demurrage and per diem fees.

Instead of navigating multiple, scattered pieces of information, BlueCargo provides container level tracking, audit trail visibility and documentation in one window connected to all of North America’s busiest container ports. Proprietary algorithms aggregate hundreds of sources of information to showcase only the most reliable data and empower operators to adapt in real time. Containers can flow from port to first-kilometre destination faster, more reliably and cost-effectively.

Today, 1200 drayage trucking companies are using BlueCargo to schedule their daily container pick-ups and returns on its platform, making it the largest operational drayage carrier connected network in the USA.

Griffon and Theveniau met during their studies in data science, artificial intelligence and entrepreneurship at UC Berkeley in 2018, located close to the port of Oakland. They discovered the painful lesson that everyone learned after Covid disruptions: ports are where all supply chains converge – around 90% of traded goods are carried over the waves – but they are also the biggest black box and bottleneck, resulting in safety stocks, frozen capital and billions of dollars lost on inefficiencies, detention and demurrage fees.

One year later, they launched BlueCargo, drawing on their insider experiences working at various terminal operators and terminal operating systems in the USA and Europe. BlueCargo’s vision is to shed light on the port terminal and drayage blackbox.

The $11m funding round was led by Soma Capital and Left Lane Capital.

“The pandemic exposed significant deficiencies in global supply chains and inadequacies in the outdated manual systems used by shippers and carriers alike,” said Alicia Garabedian, investor at Left Lane Capital.

She said Griffon’s and Theveniau’s experience as port terminal operators and data scientists uniquely positioned them to solve these pain points with an end-to-end SaaS.

“We’re excited to support BlueCargo’s mission to empower logistics businesses of any size with the software and data to digitise global trade,” she said.

Mir Faiyaz, partner at Soma Capital, added that Griffon and Theveniau brought a unique innovative view on making an efficient port supply chain.

“We’re confident that the why now has never been more apparent, with supply chains facing secular challenges around labour availability and cascading blockages, which add to the need to develop systems that promote transparency and data availability,” said Faiyaz. “BlueCargo’s mix of product expertise and focus on customer experience provide a compelling argument for them to capture the massive opportunity ahead. In two years, BlueCargo has grown from a four-person to a 35-person team while revenue and users grew exponentially.”

BlueCargo is up to no small task when the industry is lacking standards, data sharing and interoperability. Shippers can find out where their products were lost overboard days or weeks after an incident occurred, while dispatchers rely on phone calls and text messages to know the gate schedules and ask the terminals for exemptions.

This $11m funding round will be deployed to roll out the BlueCargo platform across any North American shipment, double its fully in-house US-based engineering team and continue building its core technology – BlueCargo Connect.

The coming years present new challenges and objectives such as preparing for growing trade volumes, reducing greenhouse emissions and change in regulations, starting with the Ocean Shipping Reform Act of 2022 and shippers being directly involved in accessorial billing processes. It could be the right time for drayage and logistics companies, brokers, freight forwarders and shippers to ensure they have the right partners, technology and tools to adapt, such as with BlueCargo.