The past few years have seen container shortages, soaring freight rates and unprecedented geopolitical events intensify market volatility, creating massive challenges for global shippers.
Introduction of ‘Ship Angel’
Graham Parker launched container rate platform Ship Angel on Monday after successfully exiting the industry when his digital freight platform Kontainers was acquired by logistics software provider Descartes Systems Group in 2020.
“[Shippers] couldn’t get the cargo on ships. Sometimes they didn’t know where their goods were. I thought the next time around it would be really cool to build software for shippers to help with these challenges.
Ten years ago an enterprise resource planning tool or transportation management system was able to manage rates, but now international shipping rates are changing almost every day on some trade lanes. No one knows exactly what surcharges are and it’s very difficult to manage,” Parker told FreightWaves.
He explained that in initial discussions with shippers they lacked plug-and-play software for their importing and exporting operations.
Acquisition of WaySync
Ship Angel also announced Monday it has acquired WaySync, a New York-based FreightTech firm developing AI solutions for managing fluctuating ocean freight rates. Parker was introduced to the team in the early days of building Ship Angel’s technology.
“It was a great experience building Kontainers, but this time we really want to build a big business and a great brand and I think this acquisition sends the message to the market that we are here to add real value.We are quite keen to listen to our customers’ feedback on future products. If you fast forward to this time next year, we will have at least one more product on the market with an overall goal to build plug-and-play-style solutions that deliver value to our customers,” he explained.
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Source: Yahoo! Finance
