Flexport’s strategic leap into India marks a shift towards resilient, two-way trade expansion

Flexport is significantly expanding in India, leveraging technology and local expertise to adapt to the country’s balanced import-export profile amid shifting global trade dynamics, aiming to build resilience and capture emerging opportunities.

“We’re about 3,000 years late to India.”

Those words from Ryan Petersen, founder and chief executive of Flexport, encapsulate a deliberate strategic pivot by the San Francisco–based logistics technology platform ...

as it seeks to deepen its presence in one of the world’s fastest-growing trade markets. According to the interview with STAT Trade Times, the move reflects more than geographic expansion; it is a structured response to customers diversifying supply chains away from China and seeking longer‑term resilience.

Flexport’s entry into India follows an extended period of building out capabilities in China and Southeast Asia. Petersen contrasts the two countries’ investment dynamics, likening China to a high‑speed “dragon” and India to a steady “elephant”, a metaphor he says customers use to weigh rapid scale against sustained, predictable growth. That distinction, he told STAT Trade Times, is shifting commercial calculations for multinational shippers balancing speed with resilience.

Operationally, India presents a different trade profile from many Asian markets where Flexport has been active. Petersen notes, and STAT Trade Times reports, that India displays a more balanced imports‑and‑exports mix rather than the export‑heavy structure seen in China or Vietnam. That two‑way flow requires changes to how workflows, compliance processes and customer support are designed, because Flexport must now manage inbound as well as outbound movements at scale.

Technology and local engineering form the backbone of Flexport’s India strategy. The company has built a Bengaluru engineering team of roughly 75 staff over about three years that contributes to global product development while creating India‑specific tools, STAT Trade Times reports. Flexport’s corporate materials also highlight a broader product push: the company has released more than 20 tech and AI‑driven products, including Flexport Intelligence and Flexport Control Tower, designed to expand visibility and enable non‑technical users to interrogate supply‑chain data in natural language, according to a company announcement covered by PR Newswire.

Customs and tariff complexity is another focus. Petersen said many Indian exporters concentrate on selling goods but struggle with duty interpretation, documentation and regulatory change. Flexport combines tariff‑modelling tools and human advisory to relieve that burden, an approach the company describes as “marketing as education”, STAT Trade Times reports. The corporate platform also promotes automated order management, customs brokerage and trade advisory as part of a broader effort to reduce manual processes that still prevail across many supply chains, according to Flexport’s own network description.

Inland logistics in India offers further opportunity. Petersen highlighted under‑utilised Inland Container Depots and low uptake of FOB inland bookings, with most cargo still exchanging hands at ports, which reduces visibility and control for global buyers. He argued that improved rail‑to‑port coordination, clearer pricing and better transit transparency could yield efficiency gains for western buyers who may be unfamiliar with these options, as detailed in the STAT Trade Times interview.

The company’s India expansion is taking place against a backdrop of broader capital deployment and product development. Flexport raised $935m in a Series E round led by Andreessen Horowitz and MSD Partners, with strategic participation from Shopify, to accelerate its platform and geographic growth, according to a BusinessWire release. Industry research notes Flexport’s scaling of staff and services globally and its move into capital‑intensive offerings such as warehousing and trade finance, suggesting the firm is layering physical services onto its asset‑light model to capture more of the end‑to‑end customer experience, Ti Research’s Global Freight Forwarding report finds.

Market dynamics also point to rising demand for digital freight capabilities. Sector analysis published by Datamintelligence highlights surging cross‑border e‑commerce, decarbonisation pressures and greater appetite for freight visibility and risk mitigation, trends that favour SaaS‑enabled platforms. Recent acquisitions and minority investments in the region signal competitive consolidation: Flexport’s reported acquisition of Boxnbiz in April 2025 and other platform investments in the Indian and Southeast Asian markets reflect a broader industry move to strengthen regional footholds, industry trackers show.

Flexport is staffing up locally to execute on these ambitions. STAT Trade Times reports the appointment of Jaspreet Singh as country manager for India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Pakistan to lead commercial growth and on‑the‑ground operations. Petersen said Flexport currently operates from Mumbai and Bengaluru and plans to expand into second‑tier cities as customer demand grows, positioning India not merely as an origin or destination but as a hub connecting India–US, India–Europe and intra‑Asia corridors.

As geopolitical uncertainty and tariff volatility increase freight market complexity, Petersen argues there remains ample room for providers that can marry digital tools with local expertise. The company’s public statements and external analysis indicate Flexport is betting that a combination of engineering capacity in Bengaluru, new AI‑enabled products and selective physical investments will allow it to capture a growing share of India’s two‑way trade flows while helping customers navigate a more fragmented global trading environment.

Source: Noah Wire Services