Xeneta announced Tuesday it has raised $80 million to accelerate development of its freight rate benchmarking and intelligence platform.
The raise was led by Apax Digital with participation from Lugard Road Capital. Since 2013, Oslo, Norway-based Xeneta has raised over $135 million and says it’s now valued at $265 million.
Co-founder and CEO Patrik Berglund told FreightWaves last year that in order to bring transparency to ocean freight rating systems, Xenata partnered with buyers rather than carriers. “We started crowdsourcing shipping rates by going to the [retailers]. We would get their freight prices and then we would aggregate that.”
Related: Xeneta providing rate transparency in turbulent ocean freight market
That was just as rates began to swell, and while demand has begun to bring those rates down, the volatility of the market has shippers looking for transparent rating tools to help make their procurement and financial decisions.
“While global trade tries to get back on its feet after a couple of years of uncertainty, it’s clear that the overall logistics industry requires a rethink of how freight is bought and sold. This new funding will help us accelerate development of our platform and add even more data sets to enrich our expert industry analyses to further drive transparency in the market,” said Berglund.
| Funding details | Xeneta |
|---|---|
| Funding amount | $80 million |
| Funding round | Later stage (7th round) |
| Lead investor | Apax Digital |
| Secondary investor | Lugard Road Capital |
| Business goals for the round | Expand global sales teams and invest in platform development |
| Post-money valuation | $265 million |
| Total funding | $135.46 million* |
With high-growth investors like Apax Digital, Xeneta and its customers, including Unilever, Nestle, Zebra Technologies, Thyssenkrupp, Volvo, General Mills, John Deere and Procter & Gamble, can look forward to the accelerated growth of products coming from their global shipping intelligence vendor.
“Buyers and sellers of freight have been flying blind in a complex and opaque market. Xeneta’s world-leading data set and cutting-edge platform provide unique access to granular real-time information and insight, enabling data-driven freight sales and purchases,” said Apax Digital partner Mark Beith, who joins Xeneta’s board of directors as part of the deal.
“This delivers compelling value for their blue-chip customer base — not just in sales or procurement, but also in budgeting and reporting and increasingly in ESG monitoring. We’re thrilled to partner with Patrik and the Xeneta team and help deliver their vision,” Beith said.
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