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Most merchants in South Korea track their international shipping logistics by email until their goods arrive safely at their destination. This includes all administrative processes from exporter to importer, and covers logistics, customs, payments and transportation bookings.
Portology, a South Korean digital freight forwarder that offers a shipment management system based on robotic process automation, wants to help traders track global shipping logistics and get status updates on shipments by digitizing the process through its software tool.
The CEO of PortLogics is Hyung-Chul Choi. A serial entrepreneur who first noticed the inefficient way to pursue global logistics when he launched YLP, a mid-mile logistics startup that South Korean telco SKT subsidiary T-Map Mobility acquired in 2021.
During the outbreak, shipping rates fluctuated constantly, so shippers could not predict freight charges. Recognizing how urgently the trucking industry needed to be digitally transformed, Choi and three other co-founders launched PorLogics that same year, a web-based business order management and freight management system for merchants to use as their shipments move. Loaded by boat or transported by road or rail.
More than 26 companies currently use PorLogix’s software tools, Choi said, including large logistics firms and exporters such as GS Global and Hyundai Bioland that produce materials for cosmetics and health supplements.
Such traction allowed the Korean startup to receive $1.6 million (2 billion won) in pre-Series A funding from investors, including K2G Fund and strategic investor GS Global, Korea Congress owns GS Holdings.
Portologics, which now has 19 employees (six in R&D), will use the new capital to further develop the platform by hiring additional employees.
The startup plans to introduce artificial intelligence and machine learning to make sense of the data the outfit is collecting and estimate e-booking and shipping costs, according to Choi. Choi added that PorLogix is also talking to B2B SaaS security companies to help protect its customers using software and strengthen its own data security measures.
While PorLogix is currently focused on South Korea’s freight forwarding industry, it plans to open offices in Southeast Asia and the U.S. after 2024, Choi said, noting that there is plenty of market share left to capture.
According to an estimate by Allied Research, The global digital cargo transmission market is expected to increase to 22.9 billion dollars in 2030That’s up from $2.92 billion in 2020.
“Global supply chain management and logistics have changed. [due to rising tension between the U.S. and China]And more companies are relocating to the US, building chip and battery factories,” Arch Kong told TechCrunch. “With this shift in thinking, more Korean suppliers are participating in global supply chain management ecosystems, and freight forwarding transactions from South Korea to the US and internationally are increasing. Therefore, K2G Fund will have great supporting opportunities for freight forwarding companies based in South Korea.” He believes it’s time.
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