Berlin's cargo.one acquires Cargofive, raises €17M
Berlin freight-tech scaleup cargo.one has taken a major step toward becoming a true multimodal platform: the company announced the acquisition of Lisbon-based ocean rate specialist Cargofive alongside a near €17 million ($20M) investment round that included participation from Bessemer Venture Partners.
The move is being paired with the launch of an AI-native operating system that unifies air and ocean rate data and promises agentic workflows that operate natively alongside human teams.
Cargofive, founded in 2018, brings ocean expertise spanning millions of trade lanes and connections to the top 10 ocean carriers. Combined, the companies say they now operate what is "reportedly the industrys most complete rate database," enabling automation across air and ocean from a single system.
"Most AI projects in logistics fail to deliver ROI because they lack access to robust, structured data," Moritz Claussen, founder and co-CEO of cargo.one, told EU-Startups. "Real returns come from unified data infrastructure operating at enterprise scale. With Cargofive, we're expanding the foundation already embedded inside many of the world's top forwarders' operations to encompass ocean needs, and we are delivering what makes AI actually work in production."
The new OS is pitched as an AI-native platform where operational data and agentic automation live in the same environment, not bolted on as separate tools. That distinction matters for engineers building automation: having a single source of structured, validated rate data reduces integration complexity and enables higher-confidence ML and workflow automation.
cargo.one says the platform supports scalable ingestion and management of rate data across air and ocean, and that forwarders can automate sales and procurement workflows—from quoting to contracting—without stitching together multiple systems or third-party datasets.
"Across the industry, forwarders are asking for integrated air and ocean solutions that eliminate data silos," Sebastian Cazajus, founder and CEO of Cargofive, told EU-Startups. "cargo.one has already set the standard in air. Together, we are bringing that same quality and scale to ocean freight, creating a truly multimodal operating foundation to enable agentic workflows."
The deal arrives amid a busy year for European FreightTech: investors continue to back startups building AI-enabled, multimodal systems and modern TMS solutions. For incumbents and forwarders, the pitch is straightforward—automation that runs on trusted, enterprise-grade data lowers risk when scaling AI.
"Data and AI are inseparable quality data is the foundation for quality AI," Stefan Borggreve, Member of the Management Board at Hellmann Worldwide Logistics, told EU-Startups. "When AI workflows operate using the same reliable data our people use daily, we can confidently deploy automation and focus on delivering the best customer experiences."
Investors framed the acquisition as strategically sensible. "Features become commoditised quickly; what matters is having a partner with comprehensive data infrastructure and industry-specific expertise that can evolve with your needs," Bob Goodman, Partner at Bessemer Venture Partners, told EU-Startups. "cargo.one has built exactly that foundation for multimodal logistics."