Press Release: March 2022
FreightFlows Secures Strategic Capital to Debut Predictive Maritime Platform Which Will Transform the Global Shipping Market
The fresh $1.8M seed round from leading maritime and technology venture firms, will accelerate FreightFlows’ efforts to unlock access to predictive shipping data through machine learning.
Boston, MA (March 22, 2022) - FreightFlows today announced the launch of their next generation Predictive Maritime Intelligence Platform focused on predicting near-term commercial ship operations.
The launch coincides with the close of a $1.8 million seed round, led by Motion Ventures and with participation from Newark Venture Partners, Allied Venture Partners, SaaS Ventures, Launchpad Venture Group and TecPier.
Matt Morgan, Founder and CEO of FreightFlows, said “Now more than ever, participants in the global supply chain have felt the pressure of digitalization, transparency and coordination throughout the value chain. What is lacking is a method for companies to take advantage of the promise of greater efficiency and opportunity that doesn’t threaten their competitiveness.”
“As is evident by the recent blockage of the Suez Canal, unprecedented congestion at ports and prices in a constant state of flux,” Morgan continues, “the global supply chain is in dire need of a solution to bridge the gap between a customer’s proprietary knowledge, and what’s actually happening in the moment.”
Unlike traditional “gut feel” decisions that dominate the maritime industry, FreightFlows offers customers an opportunity to leverage predictive decision-making that greatly impacts overall ship utilization, more favorable freight rates, and unrivaled transparency.
Currently, the commercial ship operations sector accounts for nearly 4% of global climate change emissions, with nearly 45% of non-containerized ships sailing empty.
FreightFlows provides data products and business intelligence to analyze historical ship behavior and predict the near-term commercial operations of the global fleet of container, wet and dry bulk vessels. These predictions are derived from cutting-edge geospatial analysis, machine learning, and big data modeling.
“Freightflows is tackling a massive problem in a huge market – forecasting supply and demand in bulk shipping. Their data analytics platform offers unparalleled near-term market predictions,” comments Tim Reinsch, Managing Partner at TecPier.
With a strong focus on building a robust, global database of maritime data, they are now serving up a customizable client data platform, and will use their recent investment to expand their product offerings to include ship-level predictive cargo data. Doing so will allow FreightFlows to move from a predictive model to a prescriptive model and will lay the foundation for artificial intelligence in the commercial markets.
"FreightFlows supply and demand forecasting in shipping will not only address some of the deepest inefficiencies in maritime, but also provide transparency across importers and exporters to make better strategic decisions like shipment planning to improve vessel utilization and optimize for global resiliency across the supply chain,” said Shaun Hon, General Partner at Motion Ventures.
Morgan has spent his career in enterprise tech, maritime tech and advanced analytics. Prior to starting FreightFlows, Morgan ran Product for Genscape, a commodities market intelligence company acquired by Wood Mackenzie in 2019. Previously he co-founded Weft, a supply chain visibility company that was acquired by Genscape in 2016.
About FreightFlows:
FreightFlows delivers actionable maritime market intelligence for traders, shippers, owners and brokers. Its proprietary technology allows global commodity shippers to more accurately analyze and predict commercial operations to optimize chartering, operations and vessel utilization. FreightFlows aims to help create a cleaner, more efficient global logistics and supply chain system. For more information visit freightflows.com