Freightos reported record bookings for the 22nd straight quarter with GBV up 56% to $317m and revenue rising 31%, as the firm pushes an indices‑plus‑AI strategy that executives say is turning its marketplace into an operational and pricing reference—while analysts caution claims of labour savings and widespread digitisation need independent verification.
Freightos says its digital freight platform is increasingly acting as both operational plumbing and a market data authority for global trade, reporting another quarter of sharply rising activity that executives say underscores the value of digitisation amid persistent geopolitical shocks.
According to the company’s second‑quarter results and comments on the earnings call on 18 August 2025, Freightos recorded 397,000 transactions in Q2 — its 22nd consecutive quarter of record bookings — with gross booking value (GBV) rising 56% year‑on‑year to $317 million and revenue up 31% to $7.4 million. Chief executive Zvi Schreiber told investors the results “demonstrate exceptional resilience through our platform’s unique capabilities and strategic adaptability,” and said the firm had revised its full‑year transactions outlook upward. Freightos’ official release also reiterated a path to breakeven on adjusted EBITDA by the end of 2026 while warning that currency movements are weighing on margins.
The headline figures tell two intertwined stories: fast growth in transactions and a deliberate push to convert opaque, manual freight workflows into an automated, data‑driven marketplace. Freightos has expanded the carrier side of its network — the company says it added 75 carriers in the quarter, including airlines such as China Airlines and Air Europa — and grew unique buyer users to about 20,200. The firm positions its Enterprise SaaS tools as automating rate negotiations, integrating procurement and providing real‑time visibility, functions it says are essential when lanes can close or transit times shift rapidly.
Freightos has also placed heavy emphasis on proprietary indices and AI as competitive differentiators. The Freightos Baltic Index (FBX) and Freightos Air Index (FAX) are presented as high‑frequency benchmarks for container and air cargo pricing that aggregate millions of anonymised price points. Freightos’ own materials note FBX is published daily with Baltic Exchange oversight and that FBX futures trade on major exchanges such as CME and SGX, giving market participants a way to hedge freight‑price volatility. The company argues that these indices — together with AI‑driven routing and pricing tools — transform it from a mere booking platform into a reference source that can shape market behaviour.
That claim has practical backing within Freightos’ narrative. Management said its AI functionality allowed 90% of enterprise users to reroute shipments during the Red Sea crisis, minimising disruption; the firm also asserts its AI tools cut manual labour by roughly 70%, freeing logistics staff from administrative tasks. Those figures, presented both on the earnings call and in subsequent industry coverage, are framed by Freightos as outcomes from customer use of WebCargo data and Enterprise workflows. Independent reporting, though, underlines the wider context: Reuters’ coverage of the Red Sea disruptions documents how Houthi attacks forced carriers to reroute and suspend transits, driving longer voyages and higher costs — a shock that intensified demand for faster, more transparent planning tools.
The market reaction to Freightos’ positioning is mixed but telling. Industry commentators and trade‑tech analysts have highlighted the company’s rapid growth and the appeal of a combined marketplace and data product. One fintech‑focused outlet noted the company’s Q2 metrics and its strategic moves, including the integration of acquired assets such as Shipsta, and flagged Freightos’ stated route to adjusted‑EBITDA breakeven. At the same time, trade analysts and consultancies caution that digitisation in logistics is hard: a December 2024 McKinsey study found that while adoption of digital and AI capabilities is accelerating, scaling such initiatives across complex, people‑centred operations remains a major hurdle. McKinsey emphasises that technology must be paired with process redesign and change management to deliver the productivity gains companies expect.
That tension — between the promise of automation and the reality of entrenched manual processes — is central to assessing Freightos’ results. The company’s data‑first approach could provide the market liquidity and transparency that traditional freight forwarding lacks; yet the industry’s structural frictions mean widespread, rapid replacement of legacy behaviours is rarely seamless. Freightos itself signposted this complexity in its regulatory filings and public statements: some KPIs reported in mid‑July were described as preliminary by PR Newswire and the company’s own press materials, and management warned investors about currency impacts on margins even as it raised transaction guidance.
For shippers and carriers, the practical question is whether a platform‑plus‑index model materially lowers risk and cost in volatile periods. If indices such as FBX become standard pricing references and futures markets deepen, market participants will gain tools to hedge price swings. If AI routing and automated procurement reduce manual intervention at scale, the industry could see notable efficiency gains. But both outcomes depend on adoption rates, the quality and openness of data flows, and the willingness of legacy incumbents to change entrenched practices — precisely the issues highlighted by independent studies of digital logistics.
Freightos’ latest quarter demonstrates appetite for digital freight services and strengthens its claim to be a market‑making player. Yet the company’s assertions about AI‑driven labour savings and customer outcomes should be read as corporate claims that require wider verification, and the broader industry picture remains one of uneven digitisation. As geopolitical disruptions and tariff shifts continue to buffet global trade, the logistics sector will be a proving ground for whether platforms that combine transactional marketplaces with authoritative data can move from promising upstarts to indispensable infrastructure — or whether scaling constraints and legacy inertia limit their reach.
For now, Freightos is betting on being at the centre of that transformation: reporting accelerating transaction volumes, extending its carrier roster and pushing an indices‑plus‑AI narrative aimed at turning episodic shocks into opportunities to demonstrate value. The company’s stated pathway to adjusted‑EBITDA break‑even by end‑2026 and its raised transaction guidance give investors a clear benchmark to watch over the next year, even as independent analysts and industry studies urge caution about the complexity of delivering broad, sustained digital change across logistics.
Source: Noah Wire Services
