CargoLine, one of the leading break bulk cargo networks in Europe, set up Cargo Digital World (CDW) as a company in January 2021. The aim of the firm, which has its headquarters in Paderborn, is to offer technology-based logistics solutions that set new standards in terms of their focus on customers, efficiency, transparency and sustainability. Representatives of CargoLine and CDW announced this development at a joint press conference. CargoLine is combining its operational dynamism with the innovative capacity and technology expertise of logistics start-ups within CDW.
“CargoLine has been forcefully pressing ahead with its digital business models for logistics since 2017. The starting point here was a long-term cooperation arrangement with the ‘garage33’ start-up incubator in Paderborn. We’ve already created three start-ups together. We’re now pooling them in Cargo Digital World so that we can manage and scale them in the best possible way. CDW will also develop other innovative logistics solutions, support them along the road to commercial viability and scale them. As a result, our medium-sized company can play a crucial role in helping organise the future of the logistics sector,” said Jörn Peter Struck, the CEO of CargoLine, explaining the situation.
The three start-ups involve the CargoBoard digital freight forwarding system, which has been successfully offering break bulk transport services across Europe since 2019, the CargoNative agency platform, which intelligently combines part and complete loads as well as cargo space capacity, and the CargoCast start-up, which improves load factors and resource planning in the transport and logistics sector by means of artificial intelligence and predictive analytics.
Cargo Digital World is being managed by Dr Tim Brühn. The experienced expert for digital industries and platform-based business models helped shape the first CargoLine start-ups in his position as Head of Corporate Entrepreneurship at ‘garage33’. “We’re convinced that we can offer our customers and logistics partners – and their clients – significant value added by strategically expanding the portfolio of CDW. As a scout and market observer, we’re constantly identifying growth opportunities and forward-looking ideas. We combine them, enable them to become commercially viable quickly by cooperating with CargoLine and scale them,” said Dr Tim Brühn, CEO of Cargo Digital World.
Plans to accommodate other cooperation partners and investorsPage 2/2 CargoLine, together with its shareholders and partner companies, currently holds all the shares in CDW. “We don’t want this to be the permanent solution. Our goal is to make CDW the leader provider of digital logistics services in Europe. We’d therefore like to expand CDW’s market position with other cooperation partners, start-ups and strategic investors and particularly equip the medium-sized business sector for a field that will undergo dynamic change,” said Bernd Schäflein, a Member of the CargoLine Advisory Board and the Chairman of the Supervisory Board at Cargo Digital World. The home page, www.cargodigitalworld.com, provides further information about CDW; it was launched at the same time as the announcement that the company had been founded.
