In a recent development, Quicargo, a Dutch logistics startup, recently raised €3 million in growth capital. The round was lead by SLJ Investments Partners, a privately owned Dutch investment fund, with participation from an array of existing and new investors from the tech and logistics industry.
Further, the company has officially announced the appointment of Rene Dahan, SLJ’s founder as Quicargo’s Advisory Board. The seasoned business executive comes with 50+ years of experience in the oil, retail, finance, and logistics industry.
More than 50% of the 13 million trucks around Europe travel empty or partially empty, and it is Quicargo’s mission is to solve this problem. Quicargo connects empty trucks with any business needing transportation in real time — ensuring a more efficient road freight industry while reducing CO2-emissions drastically.
The platform offers a matching and dynamic pricing algorithm, track&trace, and instant payment solutions. Thanks to its proprietary smart algorithms, Quicargo decreases the number of empty trucks on the road and thus reduces road congestion.
What’s next?
With the additional funding, Quicargo is aiming to further scale-up its Benelux and German operations, which started before the summer. Furthermore, the co-founder and CEO Avishai Trabelsi, an Israeli native, steers the company’s sales efforts toward mid-sized carriers.
Trabelsi: “Up until now, we’ve worked with large and mid-sized trucking companies to control the quality of service and create credibility in the market. In the current market, these trucking companies are struggling with growing demand due to the lack of drivers and increased congestion. Fuel rates are also going up, which means that all transport rates are skyrocketing. This is a serious peril for the market. The solution that Quicargo offers is a more efficient use of the existing assets (trucks) of larger trucking companies.”
“Today, we see that more and more businesses recognise and trust our brand,” Trabelsi continues. “Consequently, we are now approaching smaller trucking companies as well. At the moment, they mainly work as sub-contractors or in very limited regions because they often don’t have the resources for proactive sales and marketing. We enable them to become more flexible and connect them directly to the available demand in the market, which will benefit their margins.”
Dahan will subsequently join Quicargo’s Advisory Board, alongside Walther Ploos van Amstel, Peter Sierat, and Willem Prinsen.
The Dutch native worked in the oil industry since he started his career in 1964 at Exxon Mobile’s Rotterdam refinery, with proceeding roles as the CEO of Esso in the Benelux, the President of Exxon Company International, and the Executive Vice President of ExxonMobil Corporation. After retiring in 2002, he served in many board member positions, including at VNU, TNT, Aegon, CVC Capital Partners, and the Guggenheim group in New York. He left the Supervisory Board of Royal Ahold N.V. in 2013 after having served as its Chairman for the past decade.
Quicargo: All you need to know
For those who are not aware, located in Amsterdam, Quicargo is founded by Israeli natives Avishai Trabelsi (CEO) and Roni Liberman (CPO) and it is also an alumnus of Amsterdam-based startup accelerator Startupbootcamp. Before founding the logistics startup, Trabelsi was the CEO of a family owned-transporting company in Israel. The startup, that thus far raised €4.5M in funding, officially launched in the Netherlands during the summer of 2017. Quicargo aims to tackle inefficiency in the road freight industry by connecting trucks with spare capacity to any business that needs transportation.
The startup is now fully operational in the Benelux and Ruhr Area. The startup currently connects almost 2,000 businesses to roughly 6,000 trucks from 270 carriers. Up until now, Quicargo has saved up to 215,000 km of empty truck space on the road and thereby reduced CO2 emission with 3% inside their network.
Silicon Canals along with Digital Waves recently interviewed Avishai Trabelsi; you can watch the full episode below.
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