Mainport Innovation Fund II and Newion aim to reduce empty freight runs and make a joint investment in online transport platform Synple.
Logistics tech start-up Synple has developed a collaboration platform for road freight companies, and today the company announces that it has received a €1.1 million investment from Newion and Mainport Innovation Fund II. The Synple software platform allows partners in road transport to simply match freight orders with available capacity. This will make the transport sector more efficient, it will reduce the number of empty runs and CO2 emissions and it will increase profitability. With this first external financing round, Synple will be able to connect transportation companies faster, expand its organisation and scale up for international expansion.
One in four trucks on the road is empty. It is Synple's ambition to reduce these empty runs by 50%. Together with partners in the logistics sector, Synple has developed a collaboration platform for an exchange of trips between transportation companies. Like digital freight platforms such as Uberfreight, Convoy and Saloodo, Synple uses smart technology to match freight with capacity. What makes Synple unique is that it can make smart combinations of runs between trusted partners in real time. On top of that Synple offers a state of the art user interface for transport schedulers, who can process the required information in their own transport management systems with the click of a button. The information is exchanged via the Synple platform without having to disclose any confidential information or having to make adaptations to the existing system.
Transportation companies can integrate the Synple platform to their existing systems as a collaboration module. The Synple solution saves transport schedulers a lot of time and searching and it enables them to carry out runs more efficiently. In addition to saving time and reducing errors, the solution results in a saving of road mileage, reduced CO2 emissions and, resulting, sustainable profits for the transport sector.
National and international parties that have ran projects and pilots with Synple are very enthusiastic and they confirm the value for schedulers. Next step is connecting large and smaller transport companies in the Netherlands and Belgium, followed by the rest of Europe in 2018.
Marco Jorissen, director of Mammoet Road Cargo and one of the first participants in the Synple platform: "We've been working closely with transporters throughout Europe for years now and Synple's technology creates new opportunities for us, enabling us to schedule more efficiently and to make more sustainable runs."
Thijs Gitmans, fund manager at MIF II: "We want to invest in businesses that are able to realise a sustainable improvement in the logistics sector. We are convinced that the Synple team and solution will realise a strong impact on empty runs."
Frank Claassen, managing partner of Newion: "In the past, Synple has independently invested in impressive technology that enables strong scaling up. We believe that our investment will help Synple to continue to grow and to scale up even faster. Synple is the first investment by our recently incorporated third Newion software fund business."
Roderick Rodenburg, founder of Synple: "We're incredibly proud of the combination of these two investors. We've received a lot of interest from customers various logistics sectors in the Netherlands and abroad. We will realise this growth in the next few years and accelerate it even more together with our investment partners. We want to serve all of Europe, fast!"
In 2015, Synple started applied research into the field of logistical collaboration in the road transport sector. Together with Dinalog, Connekt and TNO (the Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research), among others, it started projects to test the concept. In 2016, the founders, Roderick Rodenburg and Machiel Resink, started developing a first version of the Synple platform. The roll-out of a scalable platform was started in 2017. Synple is active in the field or road transportation of heavy and special goods and fast moving consumer goods. Visit synple.eu for more information.
Newion III is the third business software fund of Newion and it focuses on business software companies in the Benelux. Since its incorporation in 2000, Newion has been one of the most successful VCs in its segment. Newion has a reputation of being a committed investor and it has experience in investing in start- and scale-ups. The European Investment Fund is a major investor in Newion III. Its previous funds successfully invested in Oxxio (exit), Mirror42 (exit), Q-go (exit), Collibra, Nallian, iWelcome, Reasult, 24iMedia, CustomerGauge, Instant Magazine, L1nda, The Next Ad and Oxynade. Visit www.newion-investments.com for more information.
synple.eu / synple.pr.co
Roderick Rodenburg,
rr@synple.eu or
+316 53 63 72 81
www.newion-investments.com
Frank Claassen
claassen@newion-investments.com,
+316 46 39 88 67
Thijs Gitmans,
thijs.gitmans@nbi-investors.nl,
+316 34 18 84 13
