Searoutes raises €2.4 million to reduce shippers’ GHG emissions
Marseille, 22 November – Searoutes, the Marseilles-based start-up that helps shippers reduce the carbon footprint of their transport, has announced a €1.3 million financing round led by WSB Beteiligungs, the venture capital firm founded by Wolf Scheder.
Created in 2019 by Dr. Pierre Garreau and Carsten Bullemer, Searoutes has designed its own, proprietary eco-calculator to compute the carbon footprint of a container along its journey. Incubated and accelerated by ZEBOX, the international incubator and accelerator founded by the CMA CGM Group, the start-up already has some sixty key accounts including Roquette, a global leader in plant-based ingredients for food, nutrition and health markets and Ceva Logistics a global logistics and supply chain company and is rapidly adding new customers.
Technology to help shippers reduce GHG emissions
Currently, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from transport account for up to 10% of shippers’ total GHG emissions. This is compounded by the fact that calculating emissions in the logistics sector is a laborious task and prone to poor quality data.
Searoutes sees an opportunity to replace outdated spreadsheets with its data rich API and developed a SaaS platform using its own data and proprietary algorithms to help shippers find ways to reduce their emissions. Searoutes’ technology can process and transform extensive datasets of freight information (historical ship positions, satellite data, engine specifications, schedule information, weather data, etc.) into meaningful information. The start-up helps shippers do more than just report their carbon footprint, by identifying opportunities to reduce and better manage their greenhouse gas emissions.
For example, a shipper can reduce their GHG emissions by 30% when making purchasing decisions by choosing newer, larger and slower fleets, and by up to 60% by choosing the right combination of ports and mode of transport when planning a door-to-door route.
Becoming the standard in GHG transparency for freight transport
Searoutes aims to become the standard in GHG transparency for freight transport, and its “data first” approach is already leading the way. The deal will fund the acceleration of the deployment of the solution to shippers and freight forwarders as well as other related technology platforms. Searoutes is also continuing to invest in research, in partnership with AI laboratories, to optimise the door-to-door loading-unloading cycle.
Dr. Pierre Garreau, Founder and Managing Director adds “Shippers have to deal with purchasing and managing logistics throughout the entire supply chain, not just the ocean piece. We need to help them shape better procurement strategies. For instance by choosing greener modes of transport, or more appropriate port of loading or discharge. Searoutes’ vision is to give more visibility to green carriers, and enable shippers to select them more proactively.”
International Recognition
Wolf Scheder-Bieschin, leading the seed investment round through WSB Beteiligungs GmbH, added: “Searoutes is rapidly winning over international transport professionals with its innovative approach.
Searoutes services bridge the gap between current market solutions and a need to tackle climate change issues facing the supply chain and maritime industries. I’m impressed by the technology and R&D in place at Searoutes for developing powerful complex algorithms to analyse and process data. This offers a significant advantage for everyone involved in the industry.”
The funding round includes several investors with significant expertise in logistics and freight transport, including OHB venture Capital GmbH, the venture capital arm of the OHB Group, Team ABC venture, CMA CGM, a world leader in maritime transport and logistics, and angels such as Thomas Sørbø, founder of the leading ocean freight rate benchmarking and market intelligence platform, Xeneta.
In addition, in August this year, the start-up was awarded a grant of €1.1 million from the European Maritime and Fisheries Fund (EMFF), financed by the European Commission as part of the project n°101038570 “CO2NTROL” in partnership with BuyCo, bringing Searoutes’ total funding to €2.4 million.
About Searoutes
Searoutes is a start-up specialising in innovative digital solutions for the sea, air and logistics sector. It was founded in Marseilles, France, in January 2019. The company was set up by two co-founders – Dr. Pierre Garreau and Mr. Carsten Bullemer, two sailing enthusiasts and experts in the logistics and maritime industries. Searoutes is the first distance calculation service that uses historical ship data collected from AIS signals. The company developed the backbone of its routing algorithms in collaboration with LIS – QARMA at the University of Aix-Marseille. Searoutes provides the maritime and logistics industry with real-time routes and a CO2 emissions calculator to encourage more environmentally friendly routing and greener freight transport. Searoutes joined the ZEBOX fast track program in January 2019. It also has an office in Hamburg, Germany, to forge new partnerships in the logistics industry.
OHB SE is a German space and technology group and one of the leading independent forces in the European space industry. With over 3,000 highly qualified employees and 14 locations in 10 countries, the OHB Group is excellently positioned to face international competition and has made a name for itself as a reliable partner for government institutions and private companies. OHB SE's activities are spread across three business units: Space Systems, Aerospace and Digital. While satellite systems and space missions are realised in the Space Systems segment, the Aerospace segment is a major supplier to the European aerospace industry. The third and newest business unit, Digital, combines launch services, satellite operations and the development of IT applications based on satellite data.
Team ABC is an international venture capital fund that invests in sustainability and digital transformation in the transportation and tourism industries.Team ABC finds, supports and scales early-stage disruptive technology focused on increasing sustainability and digital transformation. The Fund is headquartered in Dublin, Ireland and operates globally. Team ABC mentors early-stage products with large potential market opportunities that solve a clear industry problem.