South Korean tech company Portlogics is looking to change the way you track your cargo. In South Korea, it’s common for most merchants to track their international shipments via email until their cargo safely reaches its destination. This system currently covers every step of the process, from administrative tasks on the front end to customs on the back end of every shipment. But this doesn’t have to be the case any longer.
The Tech
Portlogics is a digital freight forwarder offering clients a robotic, automation-based forwarding management system. Their system aims to help merchants keep track of their international shipping logistics and get status updates on shipments, fully digitizing the process through their new software.
Portlogics CEO, Hyoung-chul Choi, first noticed the inefficiencies of international cargo tracking when running his first start up which was recently acquired in 2021. The entrepreneur sensed during the COVID-19 pandemic that a need for digitalization in logistics was gravely needed, so he developed a web-based software which covers the status of container shipping via liners, rail, and roads.
The Traction + Next Steps
Fast forward less than two years and 26 companies are currently using the new tech Choi and his team have created. Choi noted this includes titans in the logistics industry like GS Global and Hyundai Bioland.
This level of traction so soon after launching the venture has led to $1.6 million in series A investment to date, per Tech Crunch. The company has quickly grown to 19 employees, and will use new funding to grow that team even more, as well as further develop their platform.
These new developments are said to include the introduction of AI and machine learning, which will aim to order data and create a more accurate e-booking system to better estimate shipping costs for clients based on current market conditions.
While they currently focus on the Korean freight market, Portlogics intends to expand to Southeast Asia and the U.S. sometime in 2024, as Choi has observed a large amount of market share available in both markets.
Space to Grow
According to research from Allied Research, the global digital freight forwarding market is estimated to increase to $22.9 billion in 2030, up from $2.9 billion in 2020. Plus, with rising tensions in the east, Korea is a well-positioned market in freight forwarding moving forwards.
“The global supply chain management and logistics have been reshuffled [due to rising tension between the U.S. and China], and more companies are reshoring the U.S. by building chip and battery factories,” said managing partner of K2G Fund Archi KyoungRok Kong. “In this paradigm shift, more Korean vendors are participating in global supply chain management ecosystems, and it turns out that freight forwarding transactions from South Korea to the U.S. and globally are getting higher. So, K2G Fund believes that it is a great time there would be sizable upside opportunities for freight forwarding companies based in South Korea.”
Given Choi’s track record in the logistics start up field, market conditions fluctuating leaving merchants looking for sound resources and accurate reporting, and Korea’s potential geopolitical location – things seem to be moving in a good direction for Portlogics.
