AiDock has developed a solution that provides the shipping and logistics industry with a virtual artificial intelligence workforce that helps automate and streamline the repetitive and time-heavy tasks across global operations. Thanks to this advanced AI technology, courier companies, freight forwarders, postal services, and customs authorities can reduce the supply-chain paperwork and improve results by entering the new era of artificial intelligence, freeing up valuable time for their human workforce. The company has five large clients from the field of shipping or customs, including UPS and SGS, as well as a Japanese client that uses its capabilities for the benefit of marine insurance. The company has 32 employees.
The company started to operate in a bootstrap mode and raised $5 million in until this round. The current round of $15 million was led by the British investment group “Carlton-James” at a company valuation of $75 million. “We chose not to go with venture capital funds in order to get maximum funding with a minimum number of shares,” explained Tomer Shamir, Co-Founder and COO in an interview to tech12.
“One of the significant bottlenecks in the global supply chain is the declaration to customs,” explains Eddie Galantzan, co-founder and CEO of AiDock. It may not sound like much, but when you multiply it by millions of deliveries to a small company every year – these are astronomical numbers”. There is a lot of money in this industry, emphasizes Shamir: “Worldwide, the accuracy rate of customs clearance is 75%. In Canada, they studied it and discovered an annual excess payment of $700 billion due to over taxation. In our system, the accuracy rate is 95% from day one and it is gradually improving. But Our system also has the option of saying ‘I don’t know’ or ‘I’m not sure’ in an item, and this is where the human employee fits in. But he only invests his time in what is necessary, and the system learns from him”.
The lead investor in this round, The Carlton James Group, is an investment management group with a strong track record, specialising in diversified venture debt across varying global asset classes. One of the former investors in AiDock is the Israeli based venture capital fund THEdock. THEdock invests in and provide industry expertise to startups developing technologies for maritime, supply chain, and offshore sectors.
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