Berlin-based cargo.one, which runs a platform and marketplace for booking air cargo, raised $18.6 million in series A funding led by Index Venture, the company said in a press release. 

Next47 and prior backers Creandum, Lufthansa Cargo and Point Nine Capital also joined in the round, along with angel investors from DST Global and Carlos Gonzalez-Cadenas (current COO of GoCardless and former-CPO of Skyscanner). 

With these fresh funds, the company plans to onboard new airlines, grow in additional markets and hire 70 employees, tripling its size by the end of the year. In the next phase of its growth, cargo.one is planning to expand into North America and East Asia, looking to build more data-powered tools to offer more dynamic pricing, engage in better route planning and predict demand in volatile markets. 

As booking air cargo by email or phone becomes even more impossible due to remote work arrangements, cargo.one says that its intuitive digital platform can manage these manuals tasks by linking into airlines’ systems and providing real-time visibility of available capacity and prices, as well as additional quality parameters like temperature control. 

“Right now, booking air cargo is a long and cumbersome manual process, driven by a ‘feel’ of the market, and a short-termist, reactive approach to sales,” said Moritz Claussen, co-founder and Managing Director of cargo.one. “With cargo.one, airlines are meeting customers’ increasing demand for an outstanding user experience, while substantially lowering their costs to reach new customers and revenue opportunities.” 

In the first half of 2020, cargo.one saw the number of air cargo search requests by freight forwarders quadruple, with the number of quotes distributed in the same period increasing by two thirds. In June alone, cargo.one made more than 1.1 million bookable air freight offers available to freight forwarders 

The Berlin-based tech company’s 12 partner airlines include Lufthansa, All Nippon Airways, Finnair, Etihad, AirBridgeCargo and TAP Air Portugal