Germany's Forto raises $250 million to accelerate product offering

The latest investment comes just eight months after a June 2021 announcement of a $240 million investment round led by Softbank Vision Fund 2. The new funding builds upon the company’s significant financial position, with the total investment raised over $600 million to date. This fresh commitment from both new and existing investors serves as a clear validation of the company's vision, robust business model, and successful strategy, which are all focused on building better logistics and supply chain experiences. Forto is using its digital platform to simplify interactions, remove process friction, and increase visibility around the supply chain — in turn empowering customers to make smarter commercial decisions. It strives to make the movement of goods around the globe simpler and more certain, while simultaneously helping the logistics industry become more sustainable, the company said in a statement.

“We recognise that this is an exceptionally challenging period for many of our customers. As our business remains well-funded from our previous round in 2021, this new round will simply allow us to accelerate the execution of our existing strategy, particularly on our geographic expansion. It will allow us to further widen our customer offer, bring our technology platform support to customers in new markets, and capitalise on new opportunities as they arise,” Forto CEO and co-founder Michael Wax, said in a statement.

Forto has a worldwide presence with offices across Germany and Asia (including Shanghai, Ningbo, Shenzhen, Singapore and Hong Kong). In 2021, the company expanded its European presence with offices in Copenhagen and Aarhus in Denmark, Madrid in Spain, Rotterdam in the Netherlands. It also opened an office in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. In 2022, Forto plans to further expand its footprint to customers in Poland, Belgium, Sweden and southern Europe. 

Forto will continue to grow the company, with the addition of further industry-leading expertise in technology and logistics and the expansion of the senior leadership team to underpin this growth. In addition to the appointment of logistics industry experts to lead its regional expansion efforts, Forto recently appointed Jochen Freese, formerly chief commercial and marketing officer for CEVA Logistics, as executive vice president of procurement and business development.

Fibre2Fashion News Desk (GK)