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Tag: visibility

FourKites awarded ISO 27001 certification

Posted on by David Priestman

FourKites, a leading real-time supply chain visibility platform, has met the standards set by the International Standards Organization (ISO) for ISO 27017 for cloud service security and ISO 27018 for data privacy as part of its ISO 27001 certification. The achievement represents FourKites’ ongoing pursuit of the most recent and stringent security standards in the industry.

To qualify, an independent audit committee confirmed that FourKites meets a stringent set of requirements around security and privacy. ISO 27017 provides guidelines for information security controls applicable to and specific to the provisioning and use of cloud services, while ISO 27018 establishes commonly accepted controls and guidelines for implementing measures to protect personally identifiable information (PII) for the public cloud computing environment. Meanwhile, ISO 27001 mandates controls for the establishment, maintenance and certification of an information security management system (ISMS).

“Meeting these standards is a testament to FourKites’ ongoing commitment to go above and beyond when it comes to securing our platform, which ingests more than 250 terabytes of data each month,” said Mathew Elenjickal, FourKites Founder and CEO. “Safe and secure data sharing has tremendous benefits across the supply chain, including more accurate business planning and risk mitigation, higher customer satisfaction and retention, and improved employee morale.”

Adherence to ISO 27017 and 27018 is the latest validation of FourKites’ rigorous security efforts, including its comprehensive General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) privacy program, which even applies in regions where it is not required and incorporates the Schrems II ruling.

“Our supply chain customers and partners around the globe can rest assured that FourKites uses the strongest and most secure standards in the industry to protect their valuable data,” added Elenjickal.

FourKites delivers real-time insights to customers around the globe, leveraging patented artificial intelligence based on 150 factors, including ​​weather, traffic and real-time data from GPS, ELD telematics networks, mobile devices, AIS and more. The company offers out-of-the-box dashboards and reports, automated and customisable notifications that leverage geofencing and temperature tracking, and SKU-level visibility to track multimodal shipments, even when they’re split across multiple carriers.

In Spring 2021, FourKites was awarded a patent for its groundbreaking Smart Forecasted Arrival (SFA) solution, which provides companies with highly frequent and accurate estimated times of arrival for over-the-road freight in transit — even when a truck lacks any technology to transmit location data. SFA is now available to FourKites customers globally, extending the benefits of real-time visibility to freight that would otherwise be invisible to modern supply chain management solutions.

Tive raises $54m of funding

Posted on by David Priestman

Tive, a technology leader in the new era of supply chain and logistics visibility, has closed $54m of Series B funding led by AXA Venture Partners, with participation from Sorenson Capital, Qualcomm Ventures, Fifth Wall, SJF Ventures and Floating Point Ventures as well as the existing investors RRE Ventures, Two Sigma Ventures, NextView Ventures, Hyperplane Ventures, Broom Ventures, and Supply Chain Ventures.

In 2021, Tive grew its revenue over 300%, acquired more than 200 new customers, and expanded its global footprint. This latest investment will fuel Tive’s rapidly growing international presence, with expansion of global sales and marketing initiatives. In addition, it will accelerate the development and introduction of next-generation solutions, services and bring actionable supply chain intelligence and 24/7 monitoring to the market.

Tive says it continues to outpace and out-innovate the competition with the most advanced multi-sensor trackers, a truly intuitive SaaS application, and live 24/7 shipment monitoring service. As one of the leading providers of supply chain tracking technology, Tive has delivered real-time shipment visibility in more than 200 countries, and helped save thousands of shipments from being delayed, damaged, spoiled, or rejected.

Addressing immediate logistics needs

“Tive helps supply chain and logistics professionals bring their customer to the forefront and improve the experience of their deliveries,” said Krenar Komoni (pictured), Founder & CEO of Tive. ​“We empower every shipper and logistics service provider with the best visibility and monitoring tools in the market. We are committed to developing products that create a seamless experience and don’t get in the way of our customer’s daily operations.

“With ongoing dedication from our investors, we continue to innovate and serve our customers while strengthening our position as a global provider of shipment insights that power the next generation of sustainable and efficient supply chains.”

In 2019, Tive founded the Open Visibility Network (OVN) to ensure its vision of a world where everything and everyone is connected becomes a reality. The OVN makes shipment-level data and insights available to mutual customers and its open to all leading technology enabled stakeholders to join. Current OVN members and partners include project44, FourKites, TransVoyant, FarEye, Marine Traffic, Everstream Analytics, and many more.

“Tive has been scaling at an impressive rate, executing decisively on its vision where everything and everyone is connected. Supply chain visibility has become critical in solving large-scale problems in the world today, and Tive has emerged as the global market leader,” said Alex Scherbakovsky, General Partner at AXA Ventures Partners. ​

“The breadth of data Tive offers and ease of access for shippers, logistics providers and carriers are best in class. We believe that Tive’s next-gen solution and highly valuable network will continue to drive massive growth.”

FourKites launches universal time slot solution

Posted on by David Priestman

FourKites, the real-time supply chain visibility platform, has launched Slot Manager, its universal time slot booking solution, across Europe. The cloud-based solution helps warehouses, distribution centres and manufacturing facilities collaborate efficiently on pickup and receiving time slots, saving significant time and improving daily operations and partner relationships. In addition, the highly configurable solution allows shippers and carriers to eliminate excess dwell time on site, eliminating detention fees and significantly reducing carbon emissions.

Time slot management is a notoriously time-consuming task for shippers and carriers alike. With  carrier dwell averaging up to 4.35 hours per day, or nearly half of a driver’s time, Slot Manager improves facility productivity and reduces carrier wait time by more than 50%. Highly configurable for personalised requirements, Slot Manager enables shippers and carriers to collaborate in real time, and allows carriers to self-book their preferred time slot based on real-time transit conditions, thereby eliminating hours of daily administrative work and error-prone manual processes.

Slot Manager is an extension of FourKites’ Appointment Manager, launched over two years ago. The solution is now also available in several new Asia-Pacific markets, including Australia, New Zealand and India.

Specifically, Slot Manager offers the following benefits:

  • Labour optimisation: Leveraging FourKites’ Dynamic ETA to provide the most accurate times of arrival, teams can better allocate labour and resources based on real-time data and shifts in expected arrival time.
  • Ease and compliance with carrier scheduling: Slot Manager creates a single appointment layer accessible to both shippers and carriers to streamline communication and facilitate collaboration. Slots are created by the facility to ensure adherence to preferred scheduling, business rules and specific commodity requirements.
  • True end-to-end visibility: Powered by real-time supply chain visibility data from FourKites, Slot Manager extends visibility even further into the facility via one streamlined interface. With FourKites, stakeholders receive a comprehensive end-to-end view of shipments from point of origin to predictive insights that help orchestrate activities in the facility.
  • Diminished carrier detention costs: With optimised scheduling, carrier dwell on site can be virtually eliminated, helping shippers avoid detention fees and fines for truck queues on public roads.
  • Reduced carbon emissions: Scheduling and operational efficiencies driven by Slot Manager reduce time carriers spend in the yard by up to 50%, cutting carbon dioxide emissions by an average of 54%.

“We are excited to introduce the easiest, most flexible slot booking application on the market,” said Mathew Elenjickal, FourKites Founder and CEO. “This groundbreaking solution helps shippers across the globe optimise end-to-end visibility, efficiency and sustainability, as well as adapt quickly as their business needs change. We’re thrilled to be launching Slot Manager in Europe, specifically tailored to the needs of local facilities.”

In addition, FourKites has partnered with French transportation solutions firm IER, a Blue Systems entity (Bolloré Group), to facilitate integrated implementation in Europe, driving greater efficiency for both carriers and facilities. The partnership combines IER’s leading standard of facility hardware technology with facility processes for automated check-in and check-out. When combined with FourKites’ advanced data capture and processing capabilities, the companies’ combined pre-configured integration offers a fast, turnkey facility solution for customers.

“We chose to partner with FourKites due to their globally recognised data quality and their commitment to delivering that data back to customers with actionable insights,” said Christophe Levy, Chief Executive Officer of IER’s Track & Trace Unit. “By combining FourKites’ advanced supply chain intelligence capabilities with our leading facility hardware capabilities, we offer a seamlessly integrated solution that helps customers achieve immediate results for their business.”

 

Volumes plummet at Port of Shenzhen

Posted on by Keith McKinley

China’s zero-Covid policy is putting severe strain on supply chains across the country with factories and warehouses being frequently shut down for short periods and trucks sometimes being stopped from travelling.

At Shenzhen, normally the country’s second busiest port, figures released by supply chain visibility expert FourKites reveal a trend of sharply declining volumes, not just in the last week as the city went into full lock-down, but over the last three weeks as authorities there have taken measures to stop the spread of Covid-19 in the latest outbreak.

FourKites predicts that some suppliers and carriers will move to other ports and take the hit of significantly longer over-land routes to get there. However, the situation is volatile and it’s impossible to predict whether — and where — there may be other Covid-19 restrictions.

With delays in other parts of the world, notably the US ports that Shenzhen serves, Covid-19 restrictions at the Chinese port may not represent the worst bottle neck. It may not be worth rerouting, if goods must sit on ships for two weeks anyway before they are able to depart for the US. Chinese lock-downs tend to be short lived and so waiting it out may also be an option for users of Shenzhen.

The fact that dwell times have not shot up as volumes have gone down suggests that shippers are becoming more agile in their reactions to supply chain issues. They are not simply changing routes, sometimes they are changing the factories they source from, to keep supplies moving.

Constant change is a given these days and, for transport professionals, volatility and increasing costs are just part of the job. They will have to keep a close eye on the situation, and particularly how long Shenzhen restrictions may last, and be ready to adapt.

  • FourKites has seen impacts to ocean freight volume following the recent lockdown of the City of Shenzhen due to increasing COVID-19 cases.
  • In Guangdong Province (where the City of Shenzhen is located), 7-day average ocean load volume for both imports and exports is down 43% since 1 March. On 17 March, the 7-day average load volume was down 39% week-over-week.
  • Dwell times at the Port of Shenzhen remain stable, hovering around 8.3 days for exports and 5.1 days for imports, though dwell times will likely increase over the coming days as throughput decreases.

 

GateHouse releases new data platform for ocean logistics

Posted on by David Priestman

GateHouse Maritime, a leading provider of ocean supply chain visibility and predictability services, has introduced its new data platform, OceanIO. The new feed is scalable to support the rapidly increasing number of data points anticipated from the growing use of IOT technologies fitted to shipped and shipping assets.

Martin Dommerby Kristiansen, CEO at GateHouse Maritime, said: “The digital transformation of the logistics sector is creating a tsunami of data. At GateHouse Maritime we wanted to proactively deliver a data platform that can scale to meet the demands of this growing resource. At the same time, we wanted to reinforce our reputation as the go-to provider for a robust data foundation upon which our clients can develop and deliver reliable and accurate services to their end customers.”

OceanIO receives up to 150 million new data points daily, drawn from diverse sources including nearly 300,000 oceangoing vessels reporting information regarding their position, heading, speed and depth, together with information from 160 satellites and 2,500 terrestrial stations, 110 container freight carriers, 4,000 container ports and terminals, and meteorological reports amongst many others.

“Most importantly,” continued Kristiansen, “as sector specialists serving the seaborne logistics for over a decade, we have been able to integrate historical and trend data into OceanIO for a more powerful end service. Using machine learning means that predictive services can be a great deal more accurate to meet end customers’ expectations of a better explanation of where their freight has been, where it is currently located and when it’s expected to arrive at port. Predictability has become an increasingly vital service attribute as the supply chain has degraded with more and more disruption over the past years.”

OceanIO is augmented with nearly 3,000 different types of data on a second-by-second basis. Coming from vastly different sources by data type, volume, velocity and interval, it must all be accommodated, rationalized, harmonized and then unified for use by GateHouse clients. At the same time, clients also need to have their own customised requirements satisfied in order to deliver a differentiated customer experience.

“Our clients create services based upon the foundation data comprised within OceanIO,” concludes Kristiansen. “To ensure the success of their current and future offers – especially as these become more predictive in nature – GateHouse provides a fully configurable ‘rules engine’ enabling different fusions of data to be served on demand. We can even look to co-develop solutions using client data to provide more granular services and greater value-add.”

OceanIO is available now from GateHouse Maritime to enable predictive services which answer questions including “where is my container or freight?”, “what condition is it in?”, “has it been opened or moved from one vessel to another?”, “where is it in the customs clearance cycle?” and “how soon am I likely to receive it?”.

Forto secures $250m to accelerate international expansion

Posted on by David Priestman

Forto, a leading provider of digitised freight forwarding and supply chain solutions, has raised $250m in a pre-emptive Series D investment round led by Disruptive. Also participating in the round are existing investors including Softbank Vision Fund 2, G Squared, Northzone, Unbound, and A.P. Moeller Holding. The current round places the company valuation at $2.1bn.

According to Forto CEO and Co-Founder Michael Wax, this earlier-than-anticipated investment will further advance the company’s plans to enhance its offering for customers on a global scale. “We recognise that this is an exceptionally challenging period for many of our customers. As our business remains well-funded from our previous round in 2021, this new round will simply allow us to accelerate the execution of our existing strategy, particularly on our geographic expansion,” commented Wax.

“It will allow us to further widen our customer offer, bring our technology platform support to customers in new markets, and capitalise on new opportunities as they arise.”

The latest investment comes just eight months after a June 2021 announcement of a $240m investment round led by Softbank Vision Fund 2. The new funding builds upon the company’s significant financial position, with the total investment raised over $600m to date. This fresh commitment from both new and existing investors serves as a clear validation of the company’s vision, robust business model, and successful strategy, which are all focused on building better logistics and supply chain experiences.

Forto is using its digital platform to simplify interactions, remove process friction, and increase visibility around the supply chain — in turn empowering customers to make smarter commercial decisions. It strives to make the movement of goods around the globe simpler and more certain, while simultaneously helping the logistics industry become more sustainable.

Disruptive, a leading technology investment firm based in the United States (Austin, TX), explained the opportunity it sees in Forto: “the last few years have presented significant challenges and well-publicised uncertainty around the worldwide movement of goods. They have clearly highlighted the need for further visibility and control across the supply chain, and for Forto’s transformative solutions,” commented Alex Davis, CEO of Disruptive.

“Forto has significant potential to drive real change and improve global logistics experiences for customers across industries and touching all sectors of the shipping industry.”

Forto has a worldwide presence with offices across Germany and Asia (including Shanghai, Ningbo, Shenzhen, Singapore and Hong Kong). In 2021, the company expanded its European presence with offices in Copenhagen and Aarhus in Denmark, Madrid in Spain, Rotterdam in the Netherlands. It also opened an office in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. In 2022, Forto plans to further expand its footprint to customers in Poland, Belgium, Sweden and southern Europe.

Forto will continue to grow the company, with the addition of further industry-leading expertise in technology and logistics and the expansion of the senior leadership team to underpin this growth. In addition to the appointment of logistics industry experts to lead its regional expansion efforts, Forto recently appointed Jochen Freese, formerly Chief Commercial and Marketing Officer for CEVA Logistics, as Executive Vice President of Procurement and Business Development.

The company will also continue to advance its work to make global trade more sustainable. It aims to make climate action easy for customers, which starts with visibility on emissions and information that empowers them to make impactful data-based decisions. The goal is for sustainable choices to become the default.

The transaction remains subject to statutory closing conditions and is expected to conclude in the next few weeks.

 

FourKites unveils net zero initiative

Posted on by David Priestman

Real-time supply chain visibility platform FourKites has announced a new Net Zero initiative to help the world’s leading companies achieve their organisational goals to reduce supply chain emissions. As part of this announcement, FourKites unveiled Sustainability Hub, a suite of analytics tools to provide better visibility into resource consumption and waste generation; a new Sustainability Advisory Board; and ongoing original research around sustainability.

Sustainability Hub is the latest phase of FourKites’ ongoing focus to help companies scale sustainability efforts through technology and collaboration. The platform will include new tools and capabilities that enable customers to:

  • Input their sustainability goals and more accurately track saved emissions
  • Benchmark progress against industry averages based on organisational goals and anonymised industry data
  • Drill down into additional load-level details to better pinpoint opportunities for optimisation
  • Track progress via a single summary dashboard
  • Use analytics and scenario modelling to surface new insights for emissions reductions

Sustainability Hub builds on the company’s industry-first Sustainability Dashboards, a free solution that allows companies to identify specific areas within their supply chains that are contributing high levels of greenhouse gas emissions so that they can develop more effective sustainability strategies.

The announcement coincides with FourKites’ 2022 Global Supply Chain Sustainability Summit that is bringing together more than 4,000 supply chain executives and sustainability thought leaders from organisations including Sony, AB InBev, DHL, Future Planet, Volvo Group and others, to discuss how to drive positive environmental impact through supply chain transformation.

According to Gartner*, “We cannot scale the sustainability agenda without technology. CSCOs expect the focus on digitalisation to increase. Seventy-two percent stated that enterprises will continue to digitise and integrate new technologies, meaning supply chains will have to continuously adapt.”

To that end, FourKites has continued to drive innovation in the industry and facilitate discussion among key stakeholders across the industry in order to help companies meet their long-term sustainability goals.

“We started using FourKites years ago because we knew it was important to have visibility in transit,” said Paul Avampato, Head of International Logistics for Laundry and Home Care at Henkel. “Now we’re using that data to drive efficiencies in our supply chain and help achieve our sustainability goals.”

Sustainability Hub is the latest component of FourKites’ multi-faceted strategy to help customers achieve their sustainability goals. Other programmes and solutions include:

  • Dynamic Yard, a new category of software that connects traditional, siloed yard management software with FourKites’ real-time supply chain data and predictive ETAs to provide insight into driver detention patterns, labour efficiency and more to reduce dwell and inform carbon reduction strategies. In the last quarter of 2021, customers who used Dynamic Yard emitted 20% fewer carbon emissions than non-Dynamic Yard users through reductions in truck idle times.
  • FourKites Sustainability Center of Excellence, a thought leadership council dedicated to promoting sustainability throughout the end-to-end supply chain via actionable, data-driven strategies.

“Sustainability is a core tenet of our philosophy at FourKites, and we are hyper-focused on enabling our Fortune 1000 customers to embed sustainability throughout every level of their supply chain,” said FourKites Founder and CEO Mathew Elenjickal. “I am incredibly proud of our team for driving the sustainability agenda for the industry and helping our customers make a meaningful impact on the environment.”

* Gartner, “CSCO Response to Environmental Sustainability Trends for Supply Chain in 2022,” Sarah Watt, Laura Rainier, Heather Wheatley, Simon Bailey, Andrew Stevens, Kristin Moyer. Published 24 January 2022.

FourKites acquires visibility leader NIC-place

Posted on by Keith McKinley

FourKites has acquired NIC GmbH (NIC-place), a leading European supply chain visibility provider. FourKites’ and NIC-place’s combined over-the-road, rail and ocean carrier networks creates the largest multimodal carrier network in Europe. This will bring global shippers the most comprehensive end-to-end global supply chain visibility platform.

The acquisition will also accelerate the adoption of secure real-time visibility solutions specifically designed for carriers. Moreover, it shortens the time to value for shippers with complex, multimodal carrier networks.

NIC-place is a market leader in supply chain visibility software solutions specifically designed for transport companies, carriers and logistics service providers. With its proprietary Data Control Center (DCC), NIC-place provides carriers a flexible and secure way to share supply chain data with customers.  At the same time carriers keep complete control of their business, their network and their data.

NIC-place was founded in 2016 and is headquartered in Germany. Thousands of companies, such as Kuehne+Nagel, H. Essers, Unterer, Quehenberger and Frigotrans rely on NIC-place to track and monitor millions of shipments every year.

“We are thrilled to join forces with FourKites, the innovative market leader in real-time supply chain transport visibility and end-to-end multimodal coverage,” said Pete Jendras (pictured, left), Founder and managing director of NIC-place. “FourKites shares our vision to prioritise data security and integrity, and to empower carriers to collaborate easily with their supply chain partners. We look forward to extending the combined benefit of NIC-place’s leading carrier solutions with the largest global real-time visibility network in the world.”

As a FourKites company, NIC-place will remain focused on carrier-specific solutions. It will tap into FourKites’ leading shipper network, global scale and R&D engine to accelerate the pace of innovation. The companies will maintain the NIC-place name, and will keep the NIC-place offices in Germany from which to expand its team and operations.

“NIC-place boasts the only carrier-focused visibility solution on the market; the most advanced rail tracking features in Europe; and unmatched expertise in high-value and temperature-controlled shipments,” said FourKites founder and CEO Mathew Elenjickal (pictured, right). “This acquisition creates a powerhouse of carrier- and shipper-focused expertise that accelerates end-to-end visibility and the delivery of new solutions tailor-made for our customers’ unique requirements.”

The acquisition helps accelerate much-needed supply chain visibility across Europe. According to a recent research report on the state of European supply chains by Reuters and FourKites, 78% of European companies indicated that end-to-end freight traceability was their biggest supply chain pain point.

NIC-place’s advanced capabilities:

Data privacy and security. NIC-place’s Data Control Center (DCC) is subject to some of the most stringent data privacy regulations regarding GDPR. These laws allow carriers to have complete control over their data and with whom they share it.

Easy integration with any real-time visibility provider. NIC-place’s DCC is the only solution with standardised interfaces to all open real-time visibility platforms.  It unifies all data types from multiple telematics systems across different manufacturers and transport modes. Carriers who onboard with DCC have a simple, single hub for all of their visibility data.

Temperature-controlled and high-value shipments. NIC-place is a market-leader for tracking temperature-controlled and high-value transports such as pharmaceuticals, fresh and frozen products, and electronic equipment. The largest group of European refrigerated logistics companies rely on the NIC-place platform to better serve customers and ensure that critical goods are delivered with the highest quality.

Comprehensive and optimised rail coverage. NIC-place tracks the largest European rail network — an increasingly critical capability as many companies shift more shipments to rail in the face of ongoing ocean challenges. The company’s advanced monitoring tracks wagons, train compositions, points of interest and transports for effective use, smooth processes and better planning.

“We’re excited to see these two market leaders joining forces,” said European Carrier Rainer Linke, Unterer Logistics. “With their shared commitment to secure, carrier-controlled data sharing, collaboration and ongoing innovation, we are excited about the value this union will bring to the broader European logistics community.”

FourKites’ acquisition of NIC-place comes on the heels of record growth for both companies as they address the challenges fuelled by the ongoing global supply chain crisis. In 2021, FourKites saw 148% growth in European shipment volume, doubled the number of new European customers, grew its carrier network 35% and saw 110% growth in European carriers on FourKites’ Premier Carrier List.

FourKites will be showcasing the NIC-place solution and the value it brings to both carriers and shippers in a live webinar taking place on Wednesday, 16th February. CLICK HERE to register.

NIC-place Solution Demo

 

project44 attracts $420m investment

Posted on by David Priestman

project44, a leading supply chain visibility platform, has received an investment totalling US$420m.  A syndicate led by Thoma Bravo, TPG and Goldman Sachs Asset Management with participation from Emergence Capital, Insight Partners, Chicago Ventures, Generation Investment Management, Sapphire and Sozo Ventures acquired equity interests resulting in a pre-money valuation of $2.2bn, and Sixth Street committed to make available additional funding, in support of the company’s strategic acquisition program and product development activities.

When combined with its $202m equity raise in May of 2021, project44 has set a funding record for Logistics Tech enterprise SaaS companies. These investments position project44 to accelerate its mission to help leading brands optimise the movement of products across supply chains, delivering better resiliency, sustainability and value for their customers.

“Today, project44 is helping companies solve supply chain challenges ranging from inflationary pressure and lockdowns to unpredictable weather and bottlenecks at ports,” said Jett McCandless (pictured), Founder & CEO of project44. “Our growth over the past year speaks to these macroeconomic tailwinds and the competitive edge we can provide to our customers. With ongoing support from our investors, we can offer even more value to our customers and solidify our position as the global network that powers the future of the supply chain.”

Throughout 2021, project44 cemented its position as the #1 company in supply chain visibility with global port-to-door coverage across all modes of transportation. The company now generates more than $100m in annual recurring revenue (ARR), the largest Generation 2 logistics tech in the world.

The most influential analysts within the logistics industry also rank project44 ahead of its competitors. Placing first in FreightTech 25, Gartner Voice of the Customer and G2 have all awarded project44 their highest honours. In addition, Chicago Inno named project44 among the best 100 places to work in the city.

“Supply chain visibility has become increasingly important as shortages, delays and bottlenecks ramp up.  project44’s potential to solve even the most complex of these issues is unparalleled,” said Robert (Tre) Sayle, Partner at Thoma Bravo. “By continuously evolving to meet customer needs, project44 has developed a revolutionary platform that adds significant value to the entire global supply chain.”

“project44 has been scaling at an impressive pace, executing decisively on its vision of a global end-to-end supply chain visibility platform,” said Malte Janzarik, Partner at TPG based in Europe. “Supply chain visibility has become a critical technology to solving large-scale problems in the world today, and project44 has emerged as the global market leader. The breadth of data project44 offers and ease of access for shippers, logistics providers and carriers are unmatched. We believe that project44’s next-gen platform and highly valuable network will continue to drive tremendous growth.”

TPG is investing in project44 out of TPG Tech Adjacencies (TTAD), an investment vehicle focused on flexible capital solutions for the technology industry.

Meeting critical need

As the supply chain connective tissue, project44 offers the largest carrier network of any supply chain visibility provider with more than 142,732 multimodal carrier integrations and 2.7 million trucks.  Shippers and logistics providers depend on project44 to help them navigate today’s increasingly complex supply chains, improving their sustainability, building transportation resiliency and meeting the evolving demands of their customers.  project44 supports more than 1,000 organisations across industries including leading brands such as Amazon, Baker Hughes, Coop, CNHI, Danone, Dollar General, FedEx, General Mills, Goodyear, Kuehne & Nagel, Lenovo, McKesson, Mondelez, Nestle, The Home Depot and Unilever.

project44’s momentum speaks to its differentiation and immense lead in the supply chain visibility space. Following an exceptional Q3 2021, project44 has landed $12.7m of newly-booked ARR in Q4. The company has closed 117 logos over that timeframe, contributing to YoY bookings increase of 170% and YoY logo growth of 216%.

In addition to new business wins, net retention for 2021 is at 133%, while annualised gross retention was 96%. project44’s ARR has reached over $100m with a subscription gross margin of 70%, which is up 3% year-over-year. To build on this success, project44 will be nearly doubling its investment in product and engineering in 2022 to deliver improved real-time visibility across more modes of transportation in more regions.

project44 continues to expand its international footprint, offering supply chain visibility in 166 countries. More than 1,000 team members work with project44 at its 17 global offices. Over the coming year the company plans to hire hundreds of new talented team members in China, Europe, Latin America, North America, and Japan.

project44 also hired its first director of diversity, equity, inclusion & culture executive, Ivana Savic-Grubisich. The company is committed to hiring team members who reflect the rich diversity of the communities in which it operates.

In 2021, project44 added five new executives to the team to manage its growing footprint. Charlie Ungashick joined as Chief Marketing Officer in February and Diane Gordon joined as SVP, Global Customer Success in March. In November, Elliot Rodgers joined as Chief People Officer, Jennifer Coyne was appointed General Counsel and Andy Grygiel returned as Chief Brand Officer. These experienced executives bring unique insight to accelerate project44’s growth.

Throughout 2021, project44 increased its value to shippers and logistics providers through acquisitions of leading companies in the market offering complementary solutions. The September acquisition of Convey has enabled project44 to extend real-time visibility and exception management to last-mile, including parcel, courier, white-glove doorstep delivery, and visibility into item returns.

Ocean Insights, acquired in March, brought much-demanded visibility into cargo at sea. ClearMetal, acquired in May, established project44 as the leader in artificial intelligence and machine learning with automation that reduces costs throughout the supply chain.

Customer quotes

“project44 has enabled us to meet our commitment to customers in a year of unpredictability,” said Pat Kenefick, Vice President, Global Distribution and Logistics at AbbVie. “With awareness of where our goods are located, we can adapt to interruptions and make proactive decisions to ensure that our distributors are stocked with inventory. Supply chain visibility is a game changer for our ability to drive growth and enhance patient experiences in a challenging economic environment.”

“Haribo is committed to delivering our beloved products on time and at the high level of quality our brand is known for,” said Stefan Sorce, Head of global logistics and managing director in the Haribo Logistics Company, at Haribo. “This is a core piece of what has allowed us to become a successful business. We benefit from being a global company with a decentralised manufacturing structure. A perfectly coordinated global supply chain is essential for us and that is why we continuously invest in it. We chose to work with project44, the leader in real-time transportation visibility. These insights will help us increase the resiliency of our supply chain and enable faster and smarter decisions that will get Haribo’s products into the hands of our customers.”

“The ongoing events of the last two years have placed unprecedented strain on the supply chains of consumer products manufacturers, and this has only served to highlight the critical need to mitigate risk and increase supply chain resilience,” said Alessandro Bonanno, Head of Global Logistics and Customer Service at Beiersdorf AG. “Partnering with project44 will provide Beiersdorf with improved visibility into our transportation flows and shipments, which will help us cope better with any future supply chain disruptions and fulfil consumer demand.”

“Our team brought on project44 because of its global visibility into import and export arrival and departures,” said Hiroshi Etani, Managing Executive Officer, at Yamato Transport Co., Ltd., Japan’s largest delivery company, “The broad network of multimodal transportation tracking brings more predictability to our business and helps us better communicate with our customers.”

FourKites celebrates a record-breaking 2021

Posted on by Keith McKinley

FourKites, a leading real-time supply chain visibility platform, has announced a year of record growth as the company executed on its vision to optimise global supply chains with real-time visibility data and machine learning.

In 2021, the company saw triple-digit growth in total shipments and drove 50% growth in new customers across all industries – including Barilla Group, Beyond Meat, Cardinal Health, Haworth, LyondellBasell, McCain Foods, Roehm, Rove Concepts and Yamaha Motors. It also significantly expanded its carrier network and extended real-time visibility to more than 2,800 ports and 2.5 million facilities worldwide.

Key to its growth in 2021 was FourKites’ significant expansion in Europe. The company grew its European carrier network across carriers of all sizes, and added tangible business value with new offerings that enabled European carriers, forwarders and shippers to connect and collaborate on the world’s most trusted supply chain visibility platform. Specifically, in 2021 FourKites saw:

  • 148% growth in European shipment volume, having tracked over 112 billion miles and computed over 5 billion estimated times of arrival globally
  • 2x increase in new European customers
  • 35% growth of its carrier network, and 110% growth of the number of European carriers on FourKites’ Premier Carrier List
  • 50% growth in the number of EMEA ports and 118% growth in the number of facilities tracked per month
  • The appointment of industry veterans Marc Boileau as Senior Vice President, Sales and Carrier Operations, EMEA, and Oleskii Kosenko as Director Carrier Network Operations, EMEA to accelerate regional growth momentum among both shippers and carriers

Alleviating disruptions with innovative solutions

Amid another year of constant disruptions, FourKites doubled-down on its customer-driven innovation model, with more than 65 new features resulting from customer feedback. These industry-first capabilities help FourKites users track shipments end-to-end across all modes and geographies, from sourcing to manufacturing to final destination.

These innovations included the patented Smart Forecasted Arrival (SFA) that provides frequent and highly accurate ETAs even for untrackable freight in transit; Dynamic ETA for Ocean; Dynamic ETA for Air; a major upgrade to Dynamic YardSM; its new Order Intelligence Hub (OIH), which provides a single-pane-of-glass view of the entire lifecycle of every order; and powerful new collaboration features – including Instant Messaging, an updated CarrierLink mobile app for drivers, and enhancements to Partner Hub, its self-service, secure GPS onboarding solution for brokers and carriers.

Powerful new partnerships

In 2021, FourKites forged new strategic partnerships with global supply chain and technology leaders as it continues to execute on its bold vision for the future of digital supply chains, where automated, interconnected and collaborative supply chains are optimised by real-time visibility data and machine learning.

New partnerships in 2021 include a global partnership with Zebra Technologies Corporation, in which Zebra is now reselling FourKites’ Dynamic Yard and real-time visibility platform as part of its suite of asset visibility solutions. Additionally, Zebra’s MotionWorks Yard solution has been integrated with FourKites Dynamic Yard and Zebra locationing hardware and professional services to increase the in-yard and over-the-road capabilities of their customers.

“We have seen tremendous growth in Europe over the past year, and we look forward to another year of record-breaking momentum,” said FourKites founder and CEO Mathew Elenjickal. “Behind each success and innovation are tenacious and passionate employees, customers, and partners who keep redefining what’s possible. I’m grateful to be part of such an awe-inspiring community.”

FourKites’ market leadership was recognised via several prestigious industry reports, including being named a leader in the 2021 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Real-Time Transportation Visibility Platforms.

Customers and carriers in their own words

Paul Avampato, Head of International Logistics, Henkel: “The collaboration that we’ve talked about in logistics for 20 years is now real. And the better that you can collaborate and integrate with your carriers, the more effective you’ll be in delivering to your customer’s expectations, which is in the end, what it’s all about. FourKites is more than just track-and-trace, it’s about the visibility and how we’re going to use it to start to drive efficiencies.”

Roy van der Heijden, business analyst at Int. transportbedrijf van der Heijden b.v.: “Working with AB InBev’s FourKites platform allows us to offer a better service. FourKites makes it so easy for us to feed GPS data into AB InBev’s platform. And now, thanks to being on FourKites’ Premier Carrier List, we’re confident we’ll get even more business from customers who want excellent visibility into their supply chains.”

Edmund Jager, Head of Distribution EMEA at Bayer: “Every day, our carriers automatically share location data with our FourKites platform on hundreds of loads throughout Europe. We are able to track our products minute by minute and, in real time, pass on detailed arrival times to our customers. This means the distributors we supply always know their stock situation and end customers can depend on us to get them the seeds and crop protection they need, when they need them.”

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