Freight technology company 5U AI has secured US$3.2 million in pre-seed funding to accelerate the development and expansion of its digital workforce platform designed for European freight forwarding teams.
The company is developing an agentic artificial intelligence platform that deploys AI Workers to support daily logistics operations across air, ocean and road freight. The technology is designed to handle tasks including quotation management, bookings, shipment tracking, invoice reconciliation, data processing and routine administrative workflows.
Unlike traditional automation tools that focus on individual processes, 5U AI’s platform is designed to capture the operational reasoning behind freight decisions. This enables logistics teams to build institutional knowledge, improve future workflows and scale expertise across their organisations.
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“Freight forwarding is full of decisions that are still trapped in inboxes, spreadsheets and people’s heads,” said Yagiz Abik, chief executive officer of 5U AI.
“We are not building another chatbot that answers questions and disappears; we are building AI Workers that understand freight operations, carry out the work and capture the reasoning behind every decision, so teams can scale their knowledge as well as their capacity.”
The funding round was led by London-based Emerge Capital and will support further product development, expansion of the company’s European commercial operations and growth of its customer base.
5U AI’s technology integrates with existing freight management systems and applies multi-agent AI models trained specifically for logistics workflows. The platform is designed to address the complex exceptions, decision-making processes and manual interventions that continue to challenge conventional automation solutions in freight forwarding.
A key feature of the platform is its Decision Layer, which records how each AI Worker reaches operational decisions. This provides logistics teams with greater transparency into completed actions, the reasoning behind those actions and opportunities to improve future processes.
The company is already working with freight forwarders and carriers across Europe, including TCI International Logistics, where its AI Workers are being deployed across air and ocean freight operations.
As part of its expansion strategy, 5U AI is increasing recruitment across product development, engineering, operations, commercial and customer-focused roles.
Abik said the company believes the next phase of logistics innovation will require technology built specifically around industry expertise and real operational challenges.
“AI is one of the most exciting developments logistics has seen for a generation, but its value will depend on people who understand the industry and want to build practical tools that solve real operational problems,” he said.
The investment highlights growing interest in AI-driven solutions within the freight forwarding sector, as logistics companies look to improve efficiency, reduce administrative workloads and preserve operational knowledge in an increasingly complex global supply chain environment.
