WiseTech global has announced its second acquisition this week, this time IFS Global Holdings (SmartFreight), a parcel and LTL shipping software provider headquartered in Sydney, Australia.
SmartFreight offers multi-carrier shipping software solutions to more than 3,300 customers across Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, Ireland, South Africa and Asia, according to the acquisition announcement, which said SmartFreight processes more than 50 million parcels annually in Australia alone.
“As e-commerce continues its rapid exponential growth, the importance of omni-channel parcel and LTL shipping for customers — and the logistics industry globally — will increase by an order of magnitude,” said Richard White, WiseTech global founder and CEO, “We value the parcel logistics and technical expertise within the SmartFreight teams and their extensive coverage of parcel and LTL carriers and rates, with electronic connections to over 650 carriers in Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, the U.K. and South Africa.
“These adjacent markets complement those covered by our other WiseTech businesses — parcel shipping TMS provider Pierbridge and specialist LTL TMS provider SaasTransportation, while our Gartner-rated specialist WMS, Microlistics, can beneficially partner with SmartFreight for e-commerce fulfillment domestically in these crossover geographies,” White said.
White said SmartFreight will help accelerate the expansion of WiseTech’s CargoWise One offering. “This innovative solution is in pilot with a major air freight forwarder and will soon be launched globally for country-of-origin depot functionality — a great fit with SmartFreight capabilities.”
SmartFreight will remain under the leadership of its managing director, Ken Aitken, who said, “Joining the WiseTech Global group allows us to plug our 21 years of experience in first- and last-mile delivery into their leading integrated global platform, which is being continually enhanced and expanded. This is a great opportunity for us to improve and scale up our shipping solutions and grow in key markets.”
WiseTech Global continues with its strategy of accelerating organic growth through acquisitions. On Tuesday, it announced it had acquired DataFreight, a provider of customs, freight forwarding and warehouse management software solutions in the U.K. WiseTech has made more than two dozen acquisitions since January 2017.
