DALLAS, TX / ACCESSWIRE / August 22, 2023 / Aircon, the first gateway-as-a-service in the air cargo industry, announced today that it has closed a $3.3 seed round led by Underscore VC. This round of funding will allow Aircon to invest in deeper partnerships across the air cargo and freight markets, global gateway expansion, growing its AI tech infrastructure, and attracting top talent.
The air freight market is lagging in digital transformation, even further behind than the rest of the supply chain industry. The industry still operates largely through manual processes involving spreadsheets, phone calls, and paper. And while consolidation cuts cost by 40 percent, most forwarders skip out on it all together because it requires detailed coordination, optimal cargo mix and physical gateway locations.
Aircon is transforming the highly fragmented and inefficient air cargo industry through consolidation. Through its network of shared air freight gateways, Aircon combines shipments leveraging AI and machine learning to consolidate cargo heading to the same destination while optimizing space on aircraft. This enables forwarders of all sizes to have access to consolidation options worldwide, creating operating efficiencies and improving margins.
As the industry's first digital platform that enables consolidation across the entire air freight market, Aircon provides an instant quote and simplifies the entire air freight booking, monitoring, and cost cutting process. The Aircon algorithms pool shipments that combine dense and voluminous cargo to achieve the master consolidation available while passing the "net effect" of savings back to the freight forwarder.
"Aircon was founded to allow forwarders of all sizes access to consolidation options worldwide with a unified goal toward giving the freight forwarders they partner with, a competitive edge," said Chris Condon, Founder & CEO of Aircon. "We are challenging the status quo of long-term dominance by large established players and offering small and medium forwarders a seat at the table for the very first time. Through consolidation, we are in a unique position to contribute to the long-term growth and sustainability in the air cargo space."
The Dallas-based air cargo platform was founded in 2021 by Condon, along with Irl Wakefield, Vice President of Operations, who together have decades of experience in air transportation and global logistics. Dennis Oleksyuk, who brings deep data science expertise, joined as Chief Technology Officer in 2022. Dennis spent the past 5 years as VP of Engineering and Director of Engineering at DataRobot. Prior to DataRobot, Dennis led a team of engineers building an automated data science solution at Nutonian, which was acquired by DataRobot.
"When we first met with the Aircon team, we were blown away by the depth of their knowledge in the airfreight industry along with their vision for Aircon to digitize the airfreight industry," said John Pearce, at Underscore VC. "The Aircon team has a unique combination of deep airfreight experience paired with data science expertise that will help to capture the large opportunity ahead. As firm supporters of uniquely qualified founders solving painful problems, we're proud to back the Aircon team and lead their seed round."
"Before we started working with Aircon, we couldn't compete on the air freight side of the logistics business," said Erik Koistinen, Vice President of International Operations, Delta Express. "Aircon has leveled the playing field and the air cargo market will be transformed as a result. Using a shared gateway system has brought down costs by 37 percent, increased efficiency and reliability and eliminated wasted dollars and time."
Aircon enables businesses, e-commerce platforms and retailers to access more affordable and efficient shipping capabilities, streamline their supply chain, reduce transportation expenses, provide faster and more reliable delivery services, and improve overall operational efficiency.
The consolidation approach tackles the problem of underutilized cargo space in the air cargo industry, enabling airlines to maximize their cargo loads and fill unused space, resulting in increased revenue and cost savings. This, in turn, improves profitability and enables stakeholders to offer more transparency and competitive pricing to their customers.
Remaining competitive and winning business against the "Goliaths" of the forwarding world is the top priority for 50,000+ forwarders that Aircon targets and export consolidation alone is a $5B market opportunity. To reach an annual revenue of $100M, Aircon will need to move 62M kg of air freight - a mere 1.1% of the total air freight handled by non-top-10 freight forwarders in the US today. This provides an indication of just how much value can be unlocked from this overlooked market opportunity.
"The key to success in this complex market will be deep industry knowledge, and the Aircon founders have that in spades. Both Irl Wakefield and Chris Condon, who form the founding leadership team are uniquely qualified because of their extensive industry knowledge paired with the technical expertise required to unlock this opportunity. There is a massive opportunity to apply modern data science to the paper and spreadsheet heavy airfreight industry, allowing forwarders of all sizes to compete by accessing consolidation, digital booking and contract rates previously available to only the largest forwarders in the world." added Brian Devaney, at Underscore VC.
About Aircon AI
Aircon is the first platform designed to enable small and medium forwarders to compete with larger companies in the air freight business. Using technology and proprietary processes, Aircon executes time-sensitive consolidation of shipments right up to wheels-up so that shippers receive the best possible pricing. To learn more, please visit: https://www.airconai.com/
Media Contact:
Escalate PR
underscore@escalatepr.com
SOURCE: Aircon
https://www.accesswire.com/775782/Aircon-Raises-33-Million-in-Seed-Funding-Led-By-Underscore-to-Transform-Air-Freight
