Flexport

Flexport is a San Francisco freight forwarder and licensed customs broker that runs its business on its own software. Founded in 2013 by brothers Ryan and David Petersen, it books and manages ocean, air, truck and rail shipments for importers and exporters, clears their goods through customs, and gives them a single platform on which to see and control cargo that would otherwise be tracked across a chain of carriers, brokers, warehouses and spreadsheets. The company also sells working capital through Flexport Capital, cargo insurance, and, since 2023, e-commerce fulfilment.

The business grew quickly through the pandemic freight boom and then contracted sharply. Flexport raised $935m in a Series E in February 2022 at an $8bn valuation, bought Shopify's logistics arm in 2023 in exchange for a 13% equity stake, acquired the technology of the failed trucking startup Convoy later that year, and cut roughly a fifth of its workforce in October 2023. Headcount peaked at about 3,700 and now stands at roughly 2,800, which president Sanne Manders attributes to automation and to the restructuring that followed founder Ryan Petersen's return as chief executive in September 2023.

Since that reset the company has rebuilt its pitch around customs and tariffs, the part of the business it started in. It says its US customs filing error rate is 0.2%, launched a customs technology suite in October 2025 and tariff-refund automation in February 2026, and reports having driven more than $700m in duty drawback refunds and savings for over 300 customers. Flexport says it is trusted by more than 13,000 companies and that net revenue has nearly quadrupled since 2023.

For an investor the question is whether a capital-intensive forwarder with a software margin story can convert scale into profit. Petersen said in February 2026 that Flexport is targeting roughly 30% top-line revenue growth in 2026, which he expects would make the business "very nicely profitable", and that a listing is likely within five years. Reported revenue was $2.1bn in 2024, against about $2.2bn to $2.5bn of venture capital raised since 2013.