Flexport

Flexport is a freight forwarding and customs brokerage company based in San Francisco, California.[2]

Flexport Inc.
Private
Industry
FoundedUnited States (2013)
FounderRyan Petersen
Headquarters
San Francisco, CA[1]
,
United States
Key people
Ryan Petersen, CEO
Sanne Manders, COO
Sudhanshu Priyadarshi, CFO
Revenue $ 471 million(2018)
Websitewww.flexport.com

Business

Flexport is the first international freight forwarder and customs brokerage built around an online dashboard.[3]

It has raised $304M as of 2017, including $110M in its latest Series C round.[4]

In April 2015, Paul Graham, the founder of Y Combinator, told Bloomberg News, "There will be more international trade because of Flexport and international trade is a very big thing for there to be more of."[5] The Economic Times of India said of Flexport, "It's one of the first freight-forwarding outfits to digitise international shipping, making it easy to move goods through customs and around the world."[6]

In a 2017 interview to Forbes, Flexport's CEO Ryan Petersen said the company started opening their own warehouses for consolidating cargo customer shipments located in Hong Kong and L.A. with plans "to have a global network where we can load and unload cargo".[7]

Petersen also is a contributor to TechCrunch[8] and is a founder of Import Genius.[5]

Founding

Flexport was started by Ryan Petersen, a UC Berkeley and Columbia Business School graduate[3] in March 2013. Prior to this, he ran an Internet business together with his brother, David Peterson and friend, Michael Kanko, having to deal with import and export of various objects from China to the US. After gathering over 380 million of shipping documents that were in public record, indexing them and making them searchable, they founded ImportGenius, a subscription service for importers and exporters, that was launched in 2008.[2] In 2013, Peterson left ImportGenius to focus on simplifying international trade and customer experience for transporting of large-scale goods using software and automation.[2]

Growth

In May 2015, the company told Chinese media outlet 36kr.com that they were on pace to generate $60M in sales for 2015.[9] It had more than 600 customers in 2016. It has increased revenue by 25% every month in the 30 months since Flexport was founded, according to Petersen. As of 2017, Flexport has raised $94 million in venture capital from such investors as Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund, First Round Capital and Google Venture.[2][10] In July 2016, it had 420 employees in seven offices, including Atlanta, Amsterdam, Hong Kong and Shenzhen, and was worth $365 million.[10]

In August 2018 Flexport was named the 8th fastest growing company in USA with a three year growth of 15911%.[11]

In 2019, Flexport was named to the 2019 CNBC Disruptor 50,[12] CNBC's annual list of private companies that are transforming the economy, and Inc.'s Best Workplaces.[13]

References
  1. "Ryan Petersen's Flexport Aims To Simplify Global Freight Transport Business". Retrieved 2019-03-18.
  2. Rogers, Bruce. "Ryan Petersen's Flexport Aims To Simplify Global Freight Transport Business". Forbes. Retrieved 2019-03-19.
  3. Schubarth, Cromwell (August 7, 2015). "Peter Thiel leads $30M funding of Y Combinator grad Flexport". Silicon Valley Business Journal. Retrieved November 17, 2019.
  4. "Freight Startup Flexport Raises $110 Million And Turns Down A $1 Billion Valuation". Flexport. October 26, 2017. Retrieved January 3, 2018.
  5. "Flexport Wants to Be Uber of the Oceans". Bloomberg.com. May 11, 2015. Retrieved February 22, 2016.(subscription required)
  6. "Ryan Petersen ships Uber plan to the sea". timesofindia-economictimes. Retrieved February 22, 2016.
  7. Adams, Susan. "Flexport Wants To Do For Freight Shipping What FedEx Does For Small Packages". Forbes. Retrieved March 19, 2019.
  8. "Ryan Petersen, Contributor". TechCrunch. Retrieved November 17, 2019.
  9. "货运业的Uber来了，Flexport开启大宗物流透明化的2.0时代_36氪". 36氪. Retrieved 22 February 2016.
  10. Adams, Susan. "Flexport Wants To Do For Freight Shipping What FedEx Does For Small Packages". Forbes. Retrieved 2019-03-19.
  11. "These Are the 10 Fastest-Growing Companies in America in 2018". Inc.com. 2018-08-15. Retrieved 2019-02-14.
  12. staff, CNBC com (2019-05-15). "24. Flexport". CNBC. Retrieved 2020-03-31.
  13. staff, Inc (2019-05-16). "The 346 Best Places to Work in 2019". Inc.com. Retrieved 2020-03-31.
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