The Hong Kong-based freight booking platform Freightos started trading its stock on the NASDAQ exchange today after merging with a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) as announced in 2022, saying the move will raise more than $80 million to fund its growth strategy.
Freightos had announced the closing yesterday of its business combination with Gesher I Acquisition Corp., and said the combined company will operate as Freightos Limited and trade under the ticker symbol “CRGO.”
Freightos’ technology supports a transparent digital platform that allows real-time global freight rate comparison, booking, payment, and shipment management. That service is used by participants across the global freight ecosystem, including hundreds of airlines, ocean liners, and trucking companies, thousands of freight forwarders, and over ten thousand importers/exporters.
The company says it launched that platform in order to digitalize operations in the “massive but largely offline” international freight industry, just as previous digital revolutions have swept through the passenger travel, retail, and financial services sectors. Freightos now plans to use the capital raised from going public to scale the business, increase transaction growth and revenue, and further develop the technology stack.
“Supply chains are fragile, and the last two years demonstrated how valuable Freightos is and can be,” Zvi Schreiber, Freightos’ CEO and chairman of the board, said in a release. “The company had an outstanding 2022, despite declining freight rates and volumes, demonstrating the power of digitalizing one of the last large offline industries. We are delighted to have constructive partnerships with an increasing number of carriers, freight forwarders, and importers/exporters who are committed to digitalization.”
Freightos becomes the latest logistics sector to go public through the SPAC strategy, which is quicker than holding a traditional initial public offering (IPO). Previous examples include warehouse robotics vendors Berkshire Grey and Symbotic, autonomous vehicle company Embark Trucks Inc., and the robotic “exosuit” maker Sarcos Technology and Robotics Corp., all since 2021. The digital freight matching (DFM) startup Transfix had also planned to go public through a SPAC merger, but canceled the move in 2022, citing turbulent financial market conditions.
