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Airfreight platform Cargo.one gains water wings with Cargofive buy

[ March 2, 2026   //   ]

Airfreight platform Cargo.one has acquired ocean rate specialist Cargofive and will launch what it says is the industry’s first AI-native operating system for multimodal freight.

The platform will unify air and ocean freight data into a single foundation, with autonomous AI agents handling repetitive tasks, alongside human workers.

The move is being backed by some $20m from investors including Bessemer Venture Partners. Cargo.one says the move will position it “as the prime infrastructure layer for AI transformation in global logistics”.

It says that while forwarders and carriers are investing heavily in AI programs, most solutions have been bolt-on tools disconnected from the structured data that they use. The result is fragmented technology “where AI promises efficiency but delivers complexity and does not progress beyond the pilot phase”, it says. Cargo.one aims to address these challenges.

The acquisition of Cargofive expands Cargo.one’s rate data foundation by adding connections to the top 10 ocean carriers and scalable ocean rate data and management capabilities. Cargofive’s rates span four million trade lanes and is trusted by hundreds of forwarders globally.

Cargo.one says it now has the industry’s most complete rate database, enabling freight forwarders to automate air and ocean workflows from a single platform rather than managing fragmented tools.

Its AI-native operating system equips logistics companies to deploy ready-made AI agents or build custom ones. Built on comprehensive multimodal rate data, Cargo.one’s infrastructure includes RAG (retrieval augmented generation)-based knowledge supervision to monitor AI outputs to ensure accuracy and reliability.

The shipping service is being offered to forwarders for a slightly augmented software-as-a-service fee, with carriers also paying a fee per booking made through the system.

Cargo.one founder and co-chief executive, Moritz Claussen said: “Most AI projects in logistics fail to deliver because they lack access to robust, structured data. Real returns come from unified data infrastructure operating at enterprise scale. With Cargofive, we’re expanding the foundation already embedded inside many of the world’s top forwarders’ operations to encompass ocean needs, and we are delivering what makes AI actually work in production.”

Claussen added that when the decision whether “to build or buy” ocean capability was considered, it became clear that acquiring Cargofive would allow Cargo.one “to make a huge step forward very quickly”.

Cargofive founder and chief executive, Sebastian Cazajus, added: “Across the industry, forwarders are asking for integrated air and ocean solutions that eliminate data silos. Cargo.one has already set the standard in air. Together, we are bringing that same quality and scale to ocean freight, creating a truly multimodal operating foundation to enable agentic workflows.”

Cargo.one has developed the new seafreight platform in partnership with a number of forwarders, including Hellmann Worldwide Logistics. The latter’s board member, Stefan Borggreve, commented: “Data and AI are inseparable – quality data is the foundation for quality AI. Cargo.one has built a comprehensive operating system that our teams trust. When AI workflows operate using the same reliable data our people use daily, we can confidently deploy automation and focus on delivering the best customer experiences.”

Bessemer Venture partner Bob Goodman, commented: “When evaluating AI partners, logistics leaders should look beyond individual features to the underlying foundation. Features become commoditised quickly; what matters is having a partner with comprehensive data infrastructure and industry-specific expertise that can evolve with your needs. Cargo.one has built exactly that foundation for multimodal logistics.”

The first Cargo.one customers have been onboarded to its ocean rate management and quoting solution, and it will be extended to the wider customer base to benefit in the coming weeks. Customers that had been onboarded had already gained some interesting insights, for example being able to compare air and sea prices and services, said Claussen.

In an interview with FBJ Claussen said that acquiring Cargofive would allow the platform to add both LCL and FCL seafreight to its offering as the company had already built integration to the top ten global shipping lines and quite a number of regional operators too. The system is able to ‘digest’ rate data in almost any format, including PDF documents if required, and this will help ensure that shipping rate information is kept fully up to date.

The system is also able to cope with the many surcharges and currency and bunker adjustment factors used by the shipping industry. “On the face of it, shipping rates are complex but when you drill down into it, as Cargofive have done, it is possible to pull all the information into the system,” Claussen explained.

The shipping industry is currently less advanced than airfreight in offering online booking – “less than a handful” of carriers currently offer such a facility – but the Cargo.one system uses AI agents to send emails to carriers and to confirm bookings, he adds.

Cargo.one can offer pre- and post-shipment road transport but does not currently have a stand-alone road offering, though this is something that could be considered in future. The very fragmented nature of the road freight industry, the large numbers of variables and the lack of structured rates in many cases would make putting data on a platform more difficult however.

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