Korea’s Portlogics Makes International Shipping Easier for Merchants with Its Software Tool – TechCrunch

Most traders in South Korea track their international shipping logistics via email until their cargo arrives safely at its destination. This includes all administrative processes, from shippers to importers, and covers logistics, customs, fees and transportation booking.

Portlogics, a South Korean digital freight forwarder that offers a robotic process automation-based shipping management system, wants to help merchants track international shipping logistics and get status updates shipments, digitizing the process with its software tool.

Portlogics CEO Hyoung-chul Choi is a serial entrepreneur who first noticed the inefficient way of tracking international logistics when he ran his first startup, YLP, a middleware logistics startup than telecom operators SKT’s South Korean subsidiary, T-Map Mobility, acquired in 2021.

During the pandemic, the shipping price fluctuated constantly, so shippers could not anticipate freight charges. Realizing how urgently the freight shipping industry needed to be digitally transformed, Choi and three other co-founders launched Portlogics the same year, developing a web-based trade order management and freight management system for merchants. which they can now use, whether their goods are shipped by ship or transported by road or rail.

More than 26 companies now use Portlogics’ software tool, Choi said, adding that they include large logistics companies and shippers like GS Global and Hyundai Bioland, which produce materials used in cosmetics and dietary supplements.

This kind of traction saw the Korean startup receive $1.6 million (2 billion won) in pre-Series A funding from investors including K2G funds and strategic investor Global GS, owned by Korean conglomerate GS Holdings.

Portlogics, which now has 19 employees (including six in R&D), will use the new capital to further develop its platform, including hiring additional employees.

The startup also plans to introduce artificial intelligence and machine learning that can make sense of the data the equipment has collected and allow it to better estimate e-booking and shipping costs, Choi explained. Additionally, Portlogics is in talks with B2B SaaS security companies to help it protect customers using its software and strengthen its own data security measures, Choi added.

Portlogics is currently focused on the South Korean freight industry, but intends to open offices in Southeast Asia and the United States after 2024, Choi said, observing that there are still many market share to seize.

According to an estimate by research firm Allied Research, the Global Digital Freight Transportation Market Expected to Rise to Reach $22.9 billion in 2030compared to $2.92 billion in 2020.

“Global supply chain management and logistics have been revamped [due to rising tension between the U.S. and China] , and more and more companies are relocating to the United States by building chip and battery factories,” said Archi KyoungRok Kong, managing partner of K2G Fund. “In this paradigm shift, more Korean suppliers are participating in global supply chain management ecosystems, and transit transactions from South Korea to the United States and the world appear to be increasing. Thus, K2G Fund believes that this is a good time when there would be considerable upside opportunities for South Korea-based freight forwarding companies.