Shipnext has achieved a substantial and multi-year grant from Flanders Innovation & Entrepreneurship (VLAIO) aimed at bolstering the adoption of predictive analytics and artificial intelligence (AI) within the supply chain.
Situated at the heart of Europe’s second-largest port in Antwerp, Shipnext has assembled a dedicated team for an ambitious undertaking. Their mission: the development of a supply chain volatility forecast. This innovative initiative is poised to empower platform users by providing advanced insights into transportation costs weeks in advance and predicting demand for shipping assets.
To accomplish this, Shipnext is in the process of creating an algorithm that harnesses a variety of freight matrices and leverages data from specialized commodity trade-related analytics sources. Initially, this project is tailored to benefit users engaged in shipping commodities like steel, coal, chemicals, and agricultural products. The development toolkit includes natural language processing, machine learning, extensive big-data analysis, and predictive analytics.
Shipnext, boasting a user base of approximately 3,500 daily users encompassing brokers, traders, shippers, forwarding companies, and carriers, is set to receive an initial grant of €400,000 in the upcoming months. Over the next five years, VLAIO plans to continue providing funding as part of its commitment to stimulating entrepreneurship in the Flanders region by offering financial support to forward-thinking enterprises.
Alexander Varvarenko, the founder and CEO of Shipnext, reflected on the company’s journey, stating, “Back in 2016, Shipnext recognized that the shipping industry was inundated with emails. It became evident that the manual processing of freight requests was unsustainable. Consequently, we embarked on a digital transformation journey within the shipping sector. Initially, we patented the process of extracting cargo, fleet, and shipping data from emails using digital algorithms and AI technology to facilitate instant freight matching and workflow automation.”
Varvarenko continued, “Thanks to the invaluable support from VLAIO, we are now poised to elevate our offering to the next level. This entails helping users accurately anticipate freight rates and forecast demand for ships well in advance. The culmination of our project will result in a highly accurate forecast of freight market volatility, ultimately contributing to more sustainable supply chains, both within Europe and on a global scale.”
