Yolda wants to conquer the German logistics market

For small freight volumes for medium-sized companies, founders Murad Özsert and Volkan Özkan want to simplify shipping in the future.

For some companies, shipping small quantities of items requires a lot of planning and coordination. Murad Zsert and Volkan Zkan want to change that. Their startup is called "Yolda," which means "to be on the move" or "on the road" in Turkish. The two entrepreneurs want to digitally connect other companies and freight forwarders to optimize processes. Started in Turkey, they are now expanding to Germany, as they told Handelsblatt.

Shippers can use the Yolda app to place their freight order, including route, and would then receive three quotes. "We use machine learning to compare prices across different exchanges in real time," co-founder Özkan told the Handelsblatt. As a result, prices are competitive, he emphasizes. In turn, freight forwarders can also log on to the platform and view shipping companies' requests.

The connection between freight forwarders and shippers is intended to combat capacity bottlenecks and empty runs. In the process, AI-based technology is expected to help optimize the utilization of loading capacities and organize transports more effectively. This would make transportation more effective, flexible and affordable. This would reduce CO2 emissions, expenses and empty kilometers.

The start-up's investors to date include VC experts Collective Spark from Turkey and SpeedInvest from Austria.