French tech startup Searoutes raises $2.7M to help shippers reduce their carbon footprint and GHG emissions

Today, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from transport account for up to 10% of shippers’ total GHG emissions. The problem is compounded by the fact that calculating emissions in the logistics sector is a laborious task and prone to poor quality data.

Enter Searoutes, a Marseille, France-based tech startup that helps shippers reduce the carbon footprint of their transport. Searoutes operates Searoutes.com, a cloud-based route planning and weather routing solution for freight. The startup has designed its own, proprietary eco-calculator to compute the carbon footprint of a container along its journey.

Today, SeaRoutes announced it has raised a €1.3 million financing round led by WSB Beteiligungs, the venture capital firm founded by Wolf Scheder. The announcement follows a grant of €1.1 million the startup received in August from the European Maritime and Fisheries Fund (EMFF), financed by the European Commission as part of the project n°101038570 “CO2NTROL” in partnership with BuyCo, bringing Searoutes’ total funding to €2.4 million ($2.7 million).

SeaRoutes will use the funding proceeds for the acceleration of the deployment of the solution to shippers and freight forwarders as well as other related technology platforms. Searoutes is also continuing to invest in research, in partnership with AI laboratories, to optimize the door-to-door loading-unloading cycle. h is already leading the way.

Founded in 2019 by Dr. Pierre Garreau and Carsten Bullemer, Searoutes is a machine-learning company that addresses routing from a novel angle. Searoutes’ mission is to become the standard in GHG transparency for freight transport, and its “data first” approaches.

SeaRoutes uses historical data to compute optimal and accurate routes, with the impact of weather and real-time maritime traffic. Therefore reducing fuel costs, emissions (COx, NOx, SOx), and improving the accuracy of schedules, arrival times, and risks by 90% for global trade.

Incubated and accelerated by ZEBOX, the international incubator and accelerator founded by the CMA CGM Group, the start-up already has some sixty key accounts including Roquette, a global leader in plant-based ingredients for food, nutrition, and health markets, and Ceva Logistics a global logistics and supply chain company and is rapidly adding new customers.

Searoutes also developed the backbone of its routing algorithms in collaboration with LIS – QARMA at the University of Aix-Marseille. Searoutes provides the maritime and logistics industry with real-time routes and a CO2 emissions calculator to encourage more environmentally friendly routing and greener freight transport. The startup joined the ZEBOX fast track program in January 2019.

Searoutes sees an opportunity to replace outdated spreadsheets with its data-rich API and developed a SaaS platform using its own data and proprietary algorithms to help shippers find ways to reduce their emissions. Searoutes’ technology can process and transform extensive datasets of freight information (historical ship positions, satellite data, engine specifications, schedule information, weather data, etc.) into meaningful information. The start-up helps shippers do more than just report their carbon footprint, by identifying opportunities to reduce and better manage their greenhouse gas emissions.

For example, a shipper can reduce their GHG emissions by 30% when making purchasing decisions by choosing newer, larger, and slower fleets, and by up to 60% by choosing the right combination of ports and mode of transport when planning a door-to-door route.

In a statement, Dr. Pierre Garreau, Founder and Managing Director said, “Shippers have to deal with purchasing and managing logistics throughout the entire supply chain, not just the ocean piece. We need to help them shape better procurement strategies. For instance by choosing greener modes of transport, or more appropriate port of loading or discharge. Searoutes’ vision is to give more visibility to green carriers, and enable shippers to select them more proactively.”

Wolf Scheder-Bieschin, leading the seed investment round through WSB Beteiligungs GmbH, added: “Searoutes is rapidly winning over international transport professionals with its innovative approach. Searoutes services bridge the gap between current market solutions and a need to tackle climate change issues facing the supply chain and maritime industries. I’m impressed by the technology and R&D in place at Searoutes for developing powerful complex algorithms to analyze and process data. This offers a significant advantage for everyone involved in the industry.”