Freightos (NASDAQ:CRGO) executives told investors at the Emerging Growth Conference that the company is positioning itself as a “digital infrastructure layer” for international freight, targeting a market they described as approximately $600 billion annually and still largely run on manual processes. Chief Strategy Officer Ian Arroyo and CFO Pablo Pinillos emphasized that Freightos aims to connect carriers, freight forwarders, and importers/exporters on a single platform that supports procurement and execution workflows, with transactions viewed as a “lagging indicator” of adoption.
A largely offline industry and the case for digitization
Arroyo said more than 90% of freight bookings still happen offline via email, spreadsheets, phone calls, and even faxes, contributing to opaque pricing, slow procurement cycles, and fragmented execution. Freightos, he said, addresses these issues by providing software tools for procurement, rate management, quoting, and benchmarking, alongside a marketplace that enables real-time bookings and payments. He described Freightos as “API-driven and AI-enabled,” designed to integrate into transportation management systems, ERPs, and carrier systems.
Transaction growth and a “workflow first” adoption model
Freightos highlighted continued platform usage growth, with Arroyo saying the company has delivered 24 consecutive quarters of quarter-over-quarter record transactions, reaching 445,000 transactions in Q4 2025. He described the company’s adoption “sequencing” as starting with SaaS tools for forwarder workflows, which then become embedded in daily operations, creating habits that drive marketplace liquidity and ultimately transactions.
He also said 98% of new lanes booked in 2025 came from carriers already on the platform, which he said suggests growth is driven more by utilization and workflow embedding than by adding new participants. Freightos’ strategy going into 2026, he said, continues to prioritize winning workflow adoption first, with transactions following.
Expanding beyond spot air into contracts and multimodal
Arroyo said Freightos historically focused on the spot market, which he estimated represents 40% to 50% of annual market volume. He noted the company acquired SHIPSTA to expand into contract procurement workflows and link tendering to execution, “closing the loop” from planning through operations.
On multimodal expansion, Arroyo said Freightos is moving from being “a very strong and mature air platform” to a broader platform that includes ocean. He said Freightos announced an ocean platform in the middle of last year and is focusing initially on SaaS workflows such as rating and quoting. He added that the company expects ocean bookings to begin in 2026, but said meaningful transactional scale in ocean would likely come “at the end of 2027 and into 2028.”
Revenue mix, profitability path, and margin targets
Management said solutions revenue currently represents about two-thirds of total revenue, while platform transaction revenue accounts for roughly one-third. Arroyo said solutions customers book about three times more than freemium users, and he described a reinforcing loop in which SaaS adoption increases utilization, transaction data improves benchmarking and pricing intelligence, and that, in turn, increases the value of the SaaS offering.
Pinillos outlined what he called a path to break-even by Q4 2026, attributing it roughly 50% to operating leverage through growth and 50% to structural cost discipline. He said Freightos expects automation and infrastructure savings to begin impacting results toward the end of Q2 and into the second half of the year, and he said costs are expected to flatten or “even slightly” decline through the year. He also referenced shifting investments across products, markets, and marketing strategies, with “deinvestments” contributing to cost reductions.
On gross margin, Pinillos said the company does not disclose gross margin by segment, but he described a long-term model targeting 70% to 80% gross margins over the next five years and said Freightos has improved gross margin year over year.
Market digitization, competition, and barriers to entry
Pinillos said he estimates about 9% of the air and ocean freight market is digitized today, and that only about 2% is “in a platform.” He added that Freightos has carrier participation representing about 80% of global air cargo capacity and said the company’s spot market share is around 15%.
In discussing competition, Arroyo said competitive dynamics vary by segment:
- Air carrier platforms: cargo.one (Germany) and CargoAi (France), which he said are smaller than Freightos.
- Ocean/rate management software: Descartes, Freightify, and others he referenced including Okargo.
- Forwarder tools: Freightify and Portrix.
- Procurement (importer/exporter side): general procurement software such as SAP Ariba, JAGGAER, and Coupa, and freight-specific competitors including Transporeon, Keelvar, and Archlet.
- Market intelligence: Xeneta, Drewry, and NYSHEX.
Arroyo said Freightos’ barriers to entry include its multi-sided network and deep workflow embedding, arguing that integrations and relationships across carriers, forwarders, and shippers take years to build. He cited Freightos’ scale, describing a network of over 100 carriers across air, ocean, and truck, roughly 4,000 forwarders, and more than 10,000 importers and exporters.
In closing remarks, Arroyo said Freightos powers over 1.5 million bookings per year and reiterated management’s view that the company has “clear profitability by the end of 2026” and “the cash to get there,” with a stated goal of becoming an “indispensable digital backbone of global trade.”
About Freightos (NASDAQ:CRGO)
Freightos, trading under the symbol CRGO on Nasdaq, operates a digital booking platform designed to streamline international freight logistics. The company’s core offering, the Freightos Marketplace, allows shippers and freight forwarders to compare and book air, ocean and trucking services online, providing rate transparency and live booking capabilities. By aggregating quotes from a global network of carriers and forwarders, Freightos enables customers to secure competitive prices and manage bookings through a single interface.
In addition to its marketplace, Freightos offers a suite of SaaS solutions for logistics professionals.
