Intelligent logistics platform Raft has raised £23 million in Series B funding.
Founded in 2017, Raft – formerly known as Vector.ai – helps key players in the logistics industry apply AI to their daily tasks and customer interactions.
It has grown to more than 95 employees located in offices in the UK, India and the US, and is planning additional hires across product, engineering, and commercial functions over the next year.
The funding round is led by global VC investor Eight Roads with participation from existing investors Bessemer Venture Partners, Episode 1, and Dynamo Ventures, as well as Moguntia Capital.
The fresh capital infusion will be used to increase development and deployment of Raft’s core automation products, improve data collaboration across the ecosystem – including mission-critical emissions and visibility data – and overall deepen Raft’s market reach.
“We founded Raft as an AI-first company because we saw an opportunity to empower freight forwarders and customs brokers with technology, and take pressure off their operational teams so that they could focus on their customers instead of their keyboards,” said James Coombes, CEO and co-founder.
“We’ve always been clear about focusing on specific parts of the shipment lifecycle where automation has the highest ROI. We recognised early on the pain points around accounts payable reconciliation and customs entry preparation, and we’ve since grown the product to help automate areas such as warehousing, booking confirmations, and more.
“We quickly understood that our customers don’t want separate solutions for each of these areas, they want one AI-platform that offers best-in-class automation across the length and breadth of their business.”
At a time when freight forwarders and customs brokers are being squeezed from both sides – lower revenue as rates and volumes drop post-covid and rising costs from high staff turnover and wage inflation = digital tools that help win and retain customers combined with automation tools that make operations budgets stretch further have never been so important.
Coombes said: “We see AI as an enabling force for a new way of working in logistics. AI can help make sense out of complex and sometimes chaotic human processes, allowing them to be completely digital for the first time as well as more efficient and collaborative. Our services are more relevant than ever before and we’re excited to build on the foundation of almost six years of data and expertise in deploying cutting-edge AI to the logistics industry.”
Raft’s customers include 40% of the A&A’s Top 25 Global Freight Forwarders List, as well as global customers like EMO Trans, OIA Global, The Scarbrough Group, NNR Global Logistics, and Navia Freight.
Andy Richardson, global CIO at EMO Trans, a leading global logistics provider, said: “Raft was the right partner that matched our global vision and ambition. Their best-in-class automation platform shone in comparison to all the other options we looked at.
“Their clear AI leadership, breadth of product, and deep TMS integrations has laid a clear path to automate the execution of our entire shipment lifecycle—making the lives of our operators easier, and our customer service better.”