The freight forwarding market in Asia plays a crucial role in international trade routes, but the majority of the industry’s participants are mid-market forwarders and small to medium-sized enterprises that still use antiquated procedures. For SMB clients, this frequently results in duplications, lost opportunities, and additional costs like demurrage penalties.
Fr8Labs seeks to address this issue by becoming the “Shopify of logistics”. The cloud-based freight forwarders’ operating system from the Indonesian and Singaporean company expedites the procedure. It links internal and external stakeholder functions, including sales and operations, and integrates shipment job processes.
Seed funding totalling US $1.5 million has been raised by the company from investors such as East Ventures, FEBE Ventures, and Venturra.
Fr8Labs CEO Glenn Lai explained to Tech in Asia that a forwarder only needs to upload a PDF of a shipping order to use Fr8Labs’ system. The shipment booking and other necessary workflows are then automatically created by the system. This helps prevent human error, which can result in significant delays when it comes to customs submissions, for example.
Its use of genAI applications is “first in the market for our segment,” the CEO continued. This includes a forwarder-assistant AI bot that serves as an AI co-pilot.
The business uses a subscription model, with monthly fees for its basic platform based on the number of users. After that, users can decide which other modules to “plug and play”.
Fr8Labs eventually plans to incorporate ancillary products, including financing options, forex trading, and warehouse management systems, among others.
As of right now, the company has more than fifty customers in its three major markets: Malaysia, Indonesia, and Singapore. Additionally, Taiwan and Australia have become their new customers.
“In the next five years, we aim to be the go-to system for all freight forwarders in ASEAN [and] expand deeper into Asia,” said Lai.
