eTEU, a London, UK-based SaaS platform that removes the need for physical shipping paperwork, secured a pre-seed funding round.
The investment was from early-stage focused venture capital firm Jenson Funding Partners alongside Larix Equity, Pinto Ventures, and several angel investors including Nils Wemhoener, former Head of Logistics for Amazon Europe, Joao Monteiro, former VP of New Business at Kuehne + Nagel and Sandi Fatić, co-founder of Calimero and first infrastructure engineer at NEAR Protocol.
The investment will fund the commercial product launch of eTEU’s electronic Bill of Lading (eBL)–a document of title for the cargo – and extend this service to both shipping and freight forwarding companies.
Eduard Oboimov, Co-Founder and CEO at eTEU, says: “International shipping is vital to our global economy and trade flows. The paper-based nature of our current industry leads to complicated processes and unnecessary costs of more than $200 billion in administrative overheads for companies every year. What’s more, the electronic trade documentation solutions currently available on the market are expensive and require complicated implementation by multiple members of the supply chain. This significantly limits the adoption of available solutions because the majority of SMEs lack both technical expertise and budget to implement them. By utilising our proprietary technology and unique capabilities of the NEAR blockchain protocol, we have created a platform that saves over 80% of time spent on documentation management during the shipment and can be seamlessly integrated into existing operations of shipping and freight forwarding companies. Our pilot partnerships have had a tangible impact on companies, and we are delighted to be launching our solution to the open market.”
Following fundraising, eTEU, the shipping document digitization platform, plans to use blockchain technology to replace centuries-old paper-based procedures.
Company: eTEU Technologies Ltd
Raised: Undisclosed
Round: pre-Seed
Funding Month: February 2023
Lead Investors: Jenson Funding Partners
Additional Investors: Larix Equity, Pinto Ventures, Nils Wemhoener, former Head of Logistics for Amazon Europe, Joao Monteiro, and Sandi Fatić
Company Website: https://eteu.co.uk/
Software Category: Shipping Document Digitisation Platform
About the Company: Launched in 2020 by Eduard Oboimov, Mykhaylo Lepekha, Valentyn Kutateladze, and Kristian Volohhonski, eTEU is a startup that works on optimization and digitalization of documentation processes in international trade. The company developing a digital solution for the freight shipping industry that will provide all members of the supply chain with a decentralized network that connects all carriers, banks, forwarders, traders, and other parties of the international trading supply chain to one platform based on the distributed ledger, eliminating trust issues, streamlining the process and saving shippers time and money. eTEU connects members of the international supply chain to a single blockchain-based platform, digitalizing shipping documentation, and automating repetitive bureaucracies involved in organizing the international shipment.
Source: https://www.uktechnews.info/2023/02/23/eteu-secures-pre-seed-investment-led-by-jenson-funding-partners/