Berlin-based freight forwarding company Sennder is now worth more than $1 billion after raising $160 million in a Series D round – making it one of the most valuable tech startups in Europe.
The round, led by new and existing investors, including Accel, Lakestar, HV Capital, Project A and Scania – as well as an undisclosed US investor – brings Sennder’s total funding to $260 million. It follows the success in 2020 of the startup, which merged with French rival Everoad in June and acquired Uber Freight’s European business in September.
The company, founded in 2015, connects small and medium-sized trucking companies with shippers, with the aim of reducing the number of return trips made by empty trucks.
It is among a group of freight companies in Europe — such as London’s Zencargo and Berlin’s FreightHub — that are aiming to digitize, some say, an outdated logistics market currently worth $427 billion in Europe alone. German companies, including Sennder, account for the largest market share in this industry in Europe.
The need for digital transformation in the pen and paper industry has largely been accelerated by the coronavirus pandemic, explains David Notaker, co-founder and CEO of Sennder.
The industry is “old school,” he says, and “when coronavirus hit, a lot of logistics providers and suppliers realized they had to step up their efforts and go more digital.”
“There were a lot of freight forwarders who had fixed phone lines in offices which hadn’t changed much in 25 years. In the first lockdown, they all had to move indoors. I spoke to one of them and he said they had 80 staff, but three laptops and five Only cell phones in the company.
In comparison, Sender sees itself at the forefront of digitalisation – especially when it comes to cloud communications.
Over the past two years, the company has developed a common platform designed to “receive message flows from SMS and phone calls,” improving communication between truck drivers, as well as between truck drivers and customers.
Digital leadership
Sennder is particularly focused on the “full truckload” market – or the movement of freight from A to B. Sennder wants to digitize, record and optimize the processes of organizing, recording and optimizing the goods that truck drivers pack onto their transport platforms to improve their efficiency.
“For example, we want to increase average truck utilization. Today, a third of trucks are running empty, mostly due to the information asymmetry craze,” Notacker says.
Sennder solves this problem by combining cargo loads with process automation.
“Due to the many drawbacks and the lack of complete digitalization on the part of our shippers, human interaction is sometimes necessary to verify the data. Automating this is the next step in our development,” Notacker adds.
Sender also uses data to improve route efficiency, thus reducing road freight’s environmental impact and transportation cost.
“The big advantage we have (over competitors) is that we now have $160 million that we can spend most of on technology. We are now in the best possible place to become the leading freight forwarder in Europe.
European expansion through mergers and acquisitions
Sender – which currently has offices in seven countries including Spain, Poland, Germany, France, Italy and Latvia, and has grown to 800 employees since its founding – will also use the new funding to focus on expanding further across Europe.
“Scandinavia is a very interesting market,” explains Notacker. “Then in Eastern Europe, we still have a number of countries, like Romania, which is very interesting because most truck drivers today come from Eastern European countries.”
Notacker says the UK is also an exciting market for the company. “We are waiting a bit to see how Brexit plays out, although the domestic market which makes up 80% of UK freight traffic is very interesting.”
Much of Sender’s moves into new areas have come through acquisitions — notably its move to acquire a significant portion of Uber’s charging business last year.
“There are new acquisitions on the roadmap,” Notaker says, but there are also “smaller companies, 20 to 50 people, specifically old-school companies that we want to digitize and buy back to increase our network density and improve our growth in certain geographies.” “
In addition, Sender plans to establish more strategic partnerships to support its growth in Europe. The company wants to repeat the success it had with Poste Italiane, Italy’s national parcel operator, where, through the joint venture, Sennder helped the company save 6% of its €100 million annual spend.
Because of its focus on small and medium-sized trucking companies, Sennder often works directly with truck owners.
“Our premise is that we need to have a local presence in every market, because in order to drive technology adoption, you need a personal relationship with every small trucking company,” Notaker says.
“A company with 10 trucks should be able to see you and reach you. We received home-made sausages from our Polish truck drivers this year – showing that investing personally in the relationship with customers is crucial.
