Modernizing Freight Forwarding

Gary Benitt
October 22, 2019

Most of us have never tried to import a pallet of goods manufactured abroad. It seems so easy though. Order a new iPhone and it's on your doorstep, all the way from Shenzen to Kansas City in less than a week.

Wikipedia defines freight forwarders as:

A freight forwarder, forwarder, or forwarding agent, also known as a non-vessel operating common carrier, is a person or company that organizes shipments for individuals or corporations to get goods from the manufacturer or producer to a market, customer or final point of distribution.

If you're not at the scale of Apple or Amazon, transporting goods internationally is extremely challenging. Freight forwarders reserve space on trucks, trains, ships and planes. They ensure cargo is properly transported from carrier to carrier and port to port. And they prepare and provide customs documentation. They are the project managers of the shipping industry, managing logistics and transportation. These are all specialized skills, performed by upwards of 500,000 worldwide companies. This is a multi-trillion dollar industry that is largely unknown.

And yet, the front end of this industry is manual and outdated. It takes an average of 50 emails back and forth between a shipper and a freight forwarder to agree on details for a shipment. Behind the scenes, freight forwarders scramble through spreadsheets, send out emails and figure out logistics each and every time. The user experience is broken.

Founder/CEO Julian Alvarez and his brother Juan Alvarez have created Logixboard to positively impact this industry. Their first product improves the user experience for freight forwarders' customers. Shippers can now long into a modern web app, easily create new shipments, see the status of their inquiry and ultimately track their shipments.

When I met Julian, I quickly understood that he is a special entrepreneur. He's deeply passionate, committed and knowledgeable. He has the integrity, tenacity and grit to turn Logixboard into a large scale company. The idea originated with Juan and his direct experience working for Pilot Freight Services. Juan heard first hand from his customers that were pleading for a modern solution.

Logixboard was introduced to us by our friend Chris Devore as the team was graduating from TechStars Seattle.

To learn a bit more about the problem Logixboard is solving, take a quick look at this video:

We're thrilled to support Logixboard at this critical point, and believe the company is well-positioned to democratize digitalization for thousands of freight forwarders across the globe. I'm pleased to be joining Logixboard's board and look forward to helping them with their mission.