Conlio Raises 6.4 Million Euros for AI-Powered Financial Processes in Logistics

The Berlin-based startup Conlio has raised 6.4 million euros from existing and new investors. The company is developing an AI-based software solution for automating financial processes in the European road freight transport sector.

The funding round is led by Piton Capital. Other investors include Haufe Group Ventures, as well as WaVe-X and F-LOG Ventures. WaVe-X is the venture capital arm of the WALTER GROUP, which includes, among others, the European transport company LKW WALTER. F-LOG Ventures is the investment arm of the logistics service provider FIEGE.

Existing investors System.One, Puzzle Ventures, Booom Ventures, and Yellow are also participating in the financing. With these two strategic investors, Conlio gains additional industry expertise and access to networks within European transport logistics.

The startup emphasizes that it will remain independent even after this funding round. No details have been disclosed regarding the company’s valuation, the funding stage, or the equity stakes. The total amount of funding raised to date is also unknown. The capital is to be used primarily for the further development of the platform, hiring additional staff, and expansion in Europe.

A Multi-Billion-Euro Market with Complex Administrative Processes

European road freight transport is one of the continent’s largest economic sectors. Conlio estimates the market volume at around 430 billion euros. At the same time, freight forwarders are under considerable economic pressure. High operating costs, intense competition, and comparatively low margins underscore the importance of efficient processes. While many operational workflows in transport logistics have already been digitized, the processing of transport documents is often still done manually.

Logistics is one of the world’s largest industries, and digitization has already transformed large parts of it. At the same time, there are countless special cases and decisions that depend on the specific context.

Dr. Claudio Consul, Founder and CEO of Conlio

For nearly every shipment, different documents must be reviewed. These include, for example, CMR waybills, proofs of delivery, and invoices from the contracted carriers. These documents form the basis for freight forwarders to pay their transport partners and subsequently bill their customers for the services rendered. However, the documents are available in various formats and languages. They often contain handwritten additions or custom details. Additionally, the requirements vary depending on the client, the transport route, and the country.

AI Automatically Verifies Transport Documents

Conlio aims to automate these processes using artificial intelligence. The platform reads transport documents, interprets their content, and verifies the information against the respective transport orders.

The software must understand the significance of individual pieces of information within a document. CMR waybills are one example. Such a document may contain multiple dates—for instance, for issuance, pickup, or the actual delivery of a shipment. To ensure accurate billing, the system must recognize which date corresponds to which event.

Conlio therefore relies on AI models that evaluate information within its respective context and compare it with the requirements of the transport order. The verified documents are converted into structured transaction data, which can then be used for further business processes. The platform is thus intended to create a technical foundation on which additional financial processes can be automated in the future.

More Than 90 Percent of Document Checks Can Be Automated

According to Conlio, the platform can automate more than 90 percent of transport document verifications. This is intended to help freight forwarders reduce manual processing efforts and issue invoices more quickly. Based on its own calculations, freight forwarders can improve their earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT) by up to 30 percent by using the platform.

Freight forwarders handle enormous volumes of transactions, yet many of their financial processes still rely on manual checks. Claudio and his team understand this challenge from their customers’ perspective...

Michael Macklin, Investor at Piton Capital

According to Conlio, for a freight forwarding company with annual revenue of 100 million euros, this corresponds to a potential annual EBIT improvement of more than one million euros. The figures illustrate the economic benefits the company promises with its technology. However, these are figures and calculations provided by Conlio. Independently verified comparative data on the automation rate or on actual improvements in earnings have not been published. Furthermore, the economic effects are likely to vary depending on company size, process structure, and the current level of automation.

From Verified Document to Automated Payment

The current application focuses on the processing and verification of transport documents. In the long term, the startup aims to develop a central software platform for financial processing in road freight transport. The verified documents are intended to serve as a reliable data foundation for this purpose.

On this basis, additional processes could be automated in the future, such as invoice verification, payment authorization, or reconciliation between freight forwarders and carriers. When transport documents are processed only after several manual verification steps, the subsequent invoicing and payment are often delayed. Faster processing of the documents could therefore not only reduce administrative costs but also speed up financial processing.

The announcement does not specify in detail which additional payment functions Conlio already offers in production and which are still under development.

Active in Four European Markets

The platform is used in Germany, the United Kingdom, Spain, and Denmark. This means the Berlin-based startup has initial experience in several European markets with varying linguistic and regulatory requirements. Such differences can complicate document verification, particularly in cross-border transport.

For an automation platform designed for Europe-wide use, the ability to process different document types and languages is therefore of central importance. Conlio plans to further expand its presence in Europe with the new funding. No specific additional target countries have been named yet. Nor is any information available regarding the number of customers, the volume of documents processed, or the company’s revenue.

Founder Claudio Consul brings experience from sennder

Conlio was founded by Dr. Claudio Consul, who leads the company as CEO. Prior to founding Conlio, Consul served as Senior Vice President of Product at the digital freight forwarding company sennder. There, he was involved in establishing and further developing the product organization.

According to the company, sennder grew from approximately 200 to more than 1,000 employees during his tenure. The experience gained in digital transportation logistics is now being incorporated into the development of Conlio. Consul sees the multitude of different special cases as a key challenge in the automation of financial processes. He notes that traditional software can handle many standardized tasks but often reaches its limits when dealing with complex documents and context-dependent decisions. AI opens up new possibilities for automating even such processes to a large extent.

With Conlio, he therefore aims to use the processing of transportation documents as a starting point for a more comprehensive digitization of financial processes in logistics.

WALTER GROUP and FIEGE Make Strategic Investments

The investment by WaVe-X and F-LOG Ventures is also strategically significant for Conlio. Both investment firms are affiliated with established logistics companies. The WALTER GROUP has extensive experience in European road freight transport. FIEGE is one of Europe’s leading logistics service providers.

Through the investment by their venture capital firms, Conlio gains access to additional industry expertise and potential collaboration opportunities.

AI is currently making its way from pilot projects into the core processes of freight forwarding, and financial processing is one of the areas where the impact is most immediately felt.

Thomas Muscher, Managing Director at WaVe-X

Thomas Muscher, Managing Director at WaVe-X, sees AI-powered financial processing as an area with immediately measurable automation potential. In his view, artificial intelligence is increasingly evolving from individual pilot projects into a technology for core business processes in freight forwarding companies. WaVe-X therefore intends to support Conlio not only with capital but also with industry expertise as it scales across Europe.

Piton Capital Sees Potential for a Central Logistics Platform

Lead investor Piton Capital views Conlio as a potential provider of a comprehensive financial infrastructure for the transportation industry. Michael Macklin, an investor at Piton Capital, points to the high transaction volume of freight forwarders and the manual verification processes that remain widespread. The platform is already integrated into its customers’ daily workflows.

From the investor’s perspective, a growing number of connected companies and transactions could lead to additional network effects. To achieve this, however, Conlio would need to further develop its software beyond its current document verification capabilities and integrate additional financial processes. Whether and to what extent such network effects will actually materialize depends on future market developments.