Freightera and Supply Chain Canada launch The Nearshoring Directory, a potential sourcing solution that could revolutionize the way supply chain works

See below the official press release from Supply Chain Canada.

COVID-related supply chain pressures, ship and container shortages, combined with global transportation congestion, all have shaken international commerce. And now, particularly in Western Canada, natural disasters have increased the chaos. These challenges are forcing Canadian companies to fundamentally rethink how they do business. Near shoring, reshoring and technology adoption are paving the way toward building resiliency and growing the economy.

Building resiliency in supply chains is about to get a little easier for Supply Chain Canada members

Freightera and Supply Chain Canada in the West have come together to provide a potential sourcing solution that could revolutionize the way supply chain professionals run their operations. The Nearshoring Directory – the first of its kind in Canada – will use artificial intelligence to mine shipping data to facilitate increased trade amongst North American buyers.

All Supply Chain Canada members and select partners are being granted early access to phase I of this unique portal of regularly updated products and materials, bought and sold by a large database of North American companies. Subscribers will confidently understand what is being sold, when it’s being sold, and to whom. From medical supplies to beer tanks to isopropyl, users will have the power of knowing where to source high quality local products at competitive prices.

The partnership between the two organizations is founded on the desire to fortify supply chains across the country and will build additional features using machine learning, user feedback and local talent to build competitiveness, optimize operations, and to reduce environmental impact.

Freightera is sponsoring the presentation of keynote speaker Sohaib Shahid, Ph.D., Director of Economic Innovation at the Conference Board of Canada at the Supply Chain Canada, Alberta Institute’s Annual General Meeting.

Sohaib will be sharing his market intelligence on how the pandemic has exposed the vulnerabilities of relying too much on efficient rather than resilient supply chains. It has forced some businesses to expedite their plans to change their business models and move supply chains closer to home.

The Annual General Meeting will be held simultaneously in person and virtually on Thursday, November 18th, 2021, at Chateau Louis in Edmonton AB, from 10:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m.

Techcouver, a portal that covers and analyzes emerging technology news in Vancouver and throughout British Columbia, published an article about Freightera’s working solution for reducing the carbon footprint created by the freight industry.

”Freightera achieves this by automatically redirecting freight to existing, lower emission carriers.

Using data from the US EPA SmartWay program, Freightera calculates the net emissions reduction for multiple greenhouse gases and air pollutants and compares these with fleet averages.

Without regulation and allowing shippers to simply chose the lowest emission or lowest cost option, Freightera is achieving 20%+ plus CO2e reduction right now for 670 firms, and 50%+ reductions for 130 firms.

Freightera’s solution allows firms to achieve immediate CO2e emissions reductions in line with 2030 nationally determined targets even before widespread deployment of new lower emission vehicles.”

VANCOUVER, British Columbia, September 24, 2021 (Newswire.com) – Freightera, a leader in green freight, with an innovative CO2 emission reduction program for shippers, placed 102 on the 2021 Report on Business ranking of Canada’s Top Growing Companies by the Globe and Mail. Freightera earned its spot with three-year growth of 557%. Earlier this year, several former Amazon executives joined Freightera’s leadership team.

“Freightera is honored to join the ranks of Canada’s Top Growing Companies for a second year, and we are particularly excited that several BC firms on the previous year’s list have now become unicorns,” said Freightera CEO Eric Beckwitt.

The Freightera marketplace provides business shippers instant all-inclusive freight quotes from the best performing and lowest emission freight carriers. Over 16,500 businesses use Freightera to ship between thousands of communities in Canada and the USA. With hundreds of excellent reviews from delighted customers, Freightera helps businesses significantly lower their cost of shipping and reduce their carbon footprint.

Launched in 2019, Canada’s Top Growing Companies ranking celebrates entrepreneurial achievement in Canada by identifying and amplifying the success of growth-minded, independent businesses in Canada.

“Any business leader seeking inspiration should look no further than the 448 businesses on this year’s Report on Business ranking of Canada’s Top Growing Companies,” says Phillip Crawley, Publisher and CEO of The Globe and Mail. “Their growth helps to make Canada a better place, and we are proud to bring their stories to our readers.”

Eric Beckwitt will talk about Freightera at the first BC Cleantech virtual conference. His presentation will cover how Freightera helps businesses to ship freight and reduce the carbon footprint from shipping. Freightera offers less-than-truckload (LTL) and full-truckload (FTL) freight services by road and rail within North America.

Other presenters include Loop Energy (a supplier of hydrogen fuel cells for heavy trucks), Hydra (a provider of hydrogen admixture for existing diesel heavy trucks), Nexii (a company that enables low emission building using panels), and many local VCs.

VANCOUVER, BC, June 29, 2021 /PRNewswire/ — Freightera introduced a “CO2e Savings” badge, which quantifies the greenhouse gas reduction businesses can achieve by selecting lower-emission transportation carriers on the Freightera platform.

Thousands of business shippers use Freightera to instantly compare all-inclusive rates from hundreds of transport companies serving Canadian, U.S., and cross-border markets.

“With the record heat waves in Canada, the business community is increasingly concerned about climate change and the impact businesses have on the environment,” says Freightera CEO Eric Beckwitt. “At the same time, some of our carriers have made great progress reducing their greenhouse gas emissions. We just started highlighting these lower-emission carriers.

“If you search prices on the Freightera platform, you’ll get a list of carriers with the rate, delivery estimate, and service quality. Now, you will also see a planet logo with a number indicating emissions reduction compared to industry averages. For our best carriers, it’s 62 percent lower.”

We are proud to call ourselves a TIA finalist for the second year in the row, and for the third time ever!

”Resilience and inspiration” is the theme for this year’s awards, and we are on the final list with some of the greatest tech companies in BC and beyond.

Below is the full press release from BC Tech Association, as published on Newswire:

VANCOUVER, BC, June 17, 2021 /CNW/ – With British Columbia’s tech sector powering the province’s economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic, the BC Tech Association (BC Tech) is proud to announce the finalists for the 2021 Technology Impact Awards (TIAs).

“Throughout the COVID-19 crisis the province’s tech sector pulled together to support our communities, help small business to adopt technology, provide reskilling programs and put workers displaced by Covid into new jobs in the tech sector,” said Jill Tipping, BC Tech President and CEO. “BC Tech companies built the resilience of British Columbia this year and the stories are inspiring! With more applicants than ever before, the TIAs celebrates a community of bold optimists and innovators that is transforming BC’s economy.”

Freightera team is happy to receive a new award recognizing our impact in 2021. See the full interview our co-founder Zhenya Beck had with Andrew Jacob from DotCom magazine.

Please read the official DotCom Magazine statement below.

2021 Impact Company of The Year Awards celebrate shapeshifting entrepreneurs and their companies. When a company like yours makes impact, not only are you helping your clients, but you are also helping the world become a better place with your selfless commitment to your brand and employees. We are honored to award your company the DotCom Magazine 2021 Impact Company of The Year Award.

At DotCom Magazine, we believe entrepreneurs are the heartbeat of the world in so many ways. We believe it is a world where risk takers like you must be lauded, saluted, and respected. As an outstanding entrepreneur, you know that nothing is given to you. You know it is up to the entrepreneur to get up every morning and give an amazing effort. You know that every minute of our lives is not guaranteed. Our time is a blessing to be cherished and made the most of.

We hope that making the DotCom Magazine Impact Company of The Year Award 2021 will become a yearly event for you. We know you and your business will go from good to good. Now, more than ever, it is important to focus in on your clients, and make this the best year that they ever had. After all, that is what entrepreneurs do… we are focused with laser like vision to do what is best for our clients.

As a 2021 DotCom Magazine Impact Company of 2021 award winner, we know you will be bold. We know you will continue to make a difference. We know you will continue to build. We also know that when you hit a challenge, you will respond with grace and dignity and quite frankly, knock down the brick wall in front of you like you have always done!

Zhenya Beck and Eric Beckwitt, Co-Founders of Freightera, shared the story behind their brand and their best advice on branding, naming and domain names.

What is the story behind Freightera?

Freightera is the first lower emission freight marketplace in North America. We make freight transportation easier for shippers and greener for the environment.

We are a mission-driven company. Freight is one of the largest sources of greenhouse gas emissions and air pollution. We experienced it firsthand when our son developed life-threatening asthma in Northern California, where the air was highly polluted with ground-level ozone. We moved our family to Vancouver, Canada, for better air.

When did you start thinking about your brand name and how did you settle on Freightera?

I previously ran a web development company with my husband Eric Beckwitt, Freightera Co-Founder and CEO. We helped many customers with the design, development, brand, and marketing of new companies. We love to travel, and while our kids were small, we took the whole family abroad, camping, and on many great road trips to national parks and scenic places in Canada and the United States. It was the best education and quality time together. We found that trips were the best for generating the most creative ideas, and the name Freightera was born on a road trip from Vancouver to California. We wanted a name that had “freight” in it. We brainstormed together, asked friends and family for input and feedback on some of the other names we considered. The Freight-Terra word combination came up and it felt right. We simplified it for easier spelling to Freightera.

What was the reason to get the domain name Freightera.com for your brand? 

It communicates what we do. It has “freight” at the root of it. You can also think of it as a feminine version of “freighter” – a freight shipping vessel. You can also hear “terra”, Latin for Earth, and “era” – a long, distinct period in history, an epoch. These are positive, strong associations.

VANCOUVER, British Columbia, January 12, 2021 (Newswire.com) – Freightera, a leading online freight marketplace, is pleased to announce Jonathan Shakes, former Director of Product Management and Director of Software Engineering at Amazon, has joined the executive team as Head of Product Development. The 14-year Amazon veteran had a range of executive responsibilities including technology development for warehousing, fulfillment center, supply chain, logistics, and the Amazon marketplace platform. As Head of Product Development, Jonathan Shakes will use his customer-focused computer science and logistics leadership to drive Freightera’s technology forward.

Colleen Byrum, who built the customer service division at Amazon from the ground up, has joined Freightera as Chief of Staff. Byrum is an expert on high-growth technology companies and customer service. As Chief of Staff, the 30-year industry veteran Byrum brings her deep expertise in managing technology companies across multiple domains: organizational development, customer service, operations, and recruiting, maximizing the value of company advisors, and anticipating what comes next.

Freightera CEO Eric Beckwitt notes, “The addition of these two senior technology and service executives propels Freightera forward in our mission to create the best online marketplace for freight with an emphasis on reduction of greenhouse gas emissions.”

VANCOUVER, B.C., Nov. 18, 2020 /PRNewswire/ — Freightera, the innovative online freight marketplace, just won the 2020 Deloitte Technology Fast 50™ award. Freightera revenue grew 678% from 2016 to 2019.

Freightera provides Canadian and U.S. business shippers instant access to fixed-cost, all-inclusive freight quotes from the best-performing and lowest-emission transport companies. With a proven track record and hundreds of excellent reviews from delighted customers, Freightera helps businesses save time, lower shipping costs, and decrease CO2 emissions.

“This award is a special recognition of our success and will help us spread the word about Freightera, a triple bottom line company, offering an automated solution for businesses that reduces both carbon footprint and the cost of shipping,” said Freightera CEO Eric Beckwitt.

To qualify for the Deloitte Technology Fast 50 ranking, companies must have been in business for at least four years, have revenues of at least $5 million, be headquartered in Canada, own proprietary technology, conduct research, and development activities in Canada, and invest a minimum of five percent of gross revenues in R&D.

2020 has been a year of achievements for Freightera. In this challenging time, Freightera won the Consumer Choice Award in the freight brokerage category in Vancouver, placed among top tech companies in BC in the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) sector by Rocket Builders for the second year in a row, and made The Globe and Mail’s list of Canada’s top growing companies. Freightera also rolled out a SaaS model offering value-added paid memberships for Canadian and U.S. business shippers and logistics companies.

VANCOUVER, BC, Sept. 28, 2020 /PRNewswire/ — Freightera, with a newly launched SaaS model for Canadian and US business shippers and 3-year revenue growth of 678%, placed 80 of 400 in Canada’s Top Growing Companies 2020 by The Globe and Mail.

“Freightera is honored to join the ranks of Canada’s top growth companies, placing alongside firms like Shopify (No. 98 in 2019), and Canada Goose (No. 269 in 2020)”, noted CEO Eric Beckwitt, “We are especially pleased to see a large group of Vancouver and British Columbia companies making the list, including fellow graduates of the BC Tech Hypergrowth Accelerator”.

The Freightera marketplace provides business shippers instant access to fixed-cost, all-inclusive freight quotes from the best performing and lowest emission transport companies. Over 13,000 businesses use Freightera to ship between 23,000 communities in Canada and the US. With hundreds of excellent reviews from delighted customers, Freightera helps businesses to significantly lower their cost of shipping and decrease CO2 emissions, while leading in customer satisfaction and ease of use.

Freightera has also been recognized as the 3rd fastest-growing company in British Columbia, and among the top 5 automated freight brokerage solutions in North America.

Earlier this year, Freightera launched a SaaS model with value-added membership plans and a rewards program for volume shippers. New plans allow businesses to access new services and work more efficiently as a team.