customs-brokerage
(22)
Pegasus Logistics Group and the expensive art of arriving on time
A freight shipment can be perfectly intact and still be a business disaster. Pegasus Logistics Group has built its business around the people, promises and installation schedules waiting at the other end.
DHL Global Forwarding and the €345 million lesson in letting go
The freight specialist makes its living arranging journeys it does not entirely control. Its expensive software reversal offers a lesson for anyone trying to make a complicated business simpler.
Ascent Global Logistics: The $500,000 Case for Taking a Different Route
An automotive shipment took 43 days to arrive. Ascent changed the route, brought it down to 25, and showed why the cheapest freight bill can be an expensive habit.
Dimerco knows what happens before takeoff
The Taiwan-born freight forwarder has built its business around Asia’s exacting manufacturers. Its most revealing lesson involves semiconductor equipment, a damaged crate, and a few lengths of timber.
SEKO Logistics and the art of arriving on time
A MrBeast briefcase, 30 containers, and a Black Friday deadline reveal what SEKO sells: coordination when the calendar refuses to cooperate.
Bender Warehouse Co.: The $3.1 Million Warehouse Built to Keep Candy Cool
A Reno logistics business made room for candy, washing machines and other people’s complications. Its story explains why a warehouse earns its keep by doing much more than holding boxes.
PSA BDP and the expensive art of handing things over
A port operator meets a freight specialist. PSA BDP’s wager is that the troublesome gaps between ships, warehouses and factories are exactly where a logistics company can earn its keep.
AIT Worldwide Logistics and the $137 million reason to rethink delivery
A telecom company’s stolen devices reveal what AIT actually sells: a better-designed journey. Behind the freight forwarder’s acquisition spree is a business built around cargo that needs more than a shipping label.
Kuehne + Nagel makes its money between the handoffs
A LEGO brick has an itinerary. So does a server rack. Kuehne + Nagel earns its keep by making the awkward spaces between factories, borders and doorsteps somebody’s responsibility.
Kintetsu World Express paid $1.2 billion to go beyond the airport
The Japanese freight specialist bought the warehouses, relationships, and routines that happen after a shipment lands. Its story offers a useful lesson in buying what your business is missing.
Ruan makes your fleet somebody else’s problem
The truck may wear your name. The operation behind it may belong to Ruan, a family-owned logistics company that turns drivers, dispatch, and warehouse headaches into a service.
A.N. Deringer knows what stops a shipment. It is rarely the truck.
From Canadian hay to digital customs entries, this Vermont family business has spent a century working on the small details that make international trade possible.
Expeditors moves the world. Someone else owns the ships.
The freight forwarder built an $11 billion business by mastering the handoffs. Its most revealing product began with a retailer, a mounting bill, and software that could see the problem but could not solve it.
United Customhouse Brokers and the 0.2 mm border
Two ceiling panels. Two tariff classifications. Inside the California customs brokerage that deals with the small details behind international trade.
The Dubai Freight Company That Turned Customs Paperwork Into a Growth Engine
Al Sharqi Shipping began with customs forms and three people in Bur Dubai. More than three decades later, its pitch is still practical: make every handoff between factory, border, warehouse and buyer feel like one continuous journey.
Delmar International Inc.
Delmar began with customs forms in Montreal. Sixty years later, the family-run forwarder sells something harder to ship: a clear view across the whole supply chain.
20Cube Logistics
20Cube Logistics is a Singapore-based, software-enabled international supply chain orchestrator that moves freight from purchase order to proof of delivery. Founded in 2011 by ex-Agility Logistics executives, it pairs freight forwarding, warehousing, distribution and customs brokerage with MyHubPlus, a proprietary digital platform giving customers real-time shipment visibility, exception management and reporting across 12 countries and 85+ locations.
Tarifflo
Tarifflo is an AI-driven trade automation platform that classifies products under the Harmonized Tariff Schedule, files customs entries directly with CBP, and audits past import entries to recover overpaid duties. Founded in 2024 in Utah by ex-KPMG trade compliance specialist Bryce Judy and engineer Tanner Helms, it uses agentic AI to do work that traditionally required entire compliance teams and customs brokers, cutting hours of documentation to minutes. The company is a Y Combinator S26 startup.
Passage
Passage is an AI co-pilot for customs brokers and freight forwarders that automates the tedious paperwork of clearing imported goods. Founded in 2024 by former Google and Flexport engineers Terrell Marshall and Aditya Nadkarni, and backed by Y Combinator's S24 batch, the software reads commercial invoices, bills of lading, and packing lists, checks them for consistency, classifies products under HTSUS tariff codes, drafts filings, and handles routine email correspondence - work that entry writers otherwise do by hand for hours each day.
Deepak Chhugani
Deepak Chhugani is the founder and CEO of Nuvocargo, an AI-powered platform for cross-border truckload freight between the United States and Mexico. Born in Kenya to Indian parents and raised in Ecuador, he worked on Latin America M&A deals at Bank of America Merrill Lynch before starting Nuvocargo in 2019. The company has raised more than $75 million from investors including Y Combinator, Tiger Global, QED, and NFX, and combines freight forwarding, customs brokerage, cargo insurance, and financing on one platform. Chhugani was named to the Forbes 30 Under 30 list for enterprise technology in 2023 and is an Endeavor Entrepreneur.
Nuvocargo
Nuvocargo is a digital-first freight forwarder and licensed U.S. customs broker built to simplify the $40B+ over-the-road freight market between the United States and Mexico. Through a single platform, it combines trucking, customs clearance, cargo insurance, carrier payments and trade finance, and is increasingly layering AI automation across the load lifecycle. Founded in 2019 by Deepak Chhugani, the New York- and Mexico City-based company has raised over $74M and rode the nearshoring wave to serve roughly 500 shippers including Kimberly-Clark, Nestle and Grupo Bimbo.
Rick Tellez
Rick Tellez is the Co-Founder of KlearNow.AI, an AI-powered platform digitizing customs clearance and trade compliance for importers, freight forwarders, and customs brokers. Drawing on 20+ years of logistics expertise at DHL, Tellez co-founded KlearNow in 2018 to automate the manual, error-prone paperwork that bottlenecks global trade. The company has raised $69 million in funding, serves over 1,000 organizations, and generates $26.8M in annual recurring revenue.