Freightos Q2 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

Quartr
Provided by Quartr
August 19, 2024

There are 6 speakers on the call.

Operator

And welcome to Freda's Q2 twenty twenty four Earnings Conference Call. A press release with detailed financial results and a press release announcing our acquisition of Shipza were released earlier today and are available on the Investor Relations section of our website, freitas.com/investors. My name is Anati Ron Heilborn, and I'm joined today by Doctor. Zvi Schreiber, the CEO of Freitas Ranjalev, CFO and Christian Wilhelm, Founder and MD of Schibsta. Following the prepared remarks, we will open the call for questions.

Operator

We are sharing slides during the call, so we recommend using Zoom on a computer rather than dialing in by phone. The slides as well as a recording of this earnings call will be available on our website shortly after the call. Please be aware that today's discussion contains forward looking statements, which are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties. Actual results may differ materially due to various risk factors. Please refer to today's press release and our SEC filings for more information on risk factors and other factors, which could impact forward looking statements.

Operator

Copies of these reports are available online. In discussing the results of our operations, we will be providing and referring to certain non IFRS financial measures. You can find reconciliations to the most directly comparable IFRS financial measures along with additional information regarding those non IFRS financial measures in the press release on our website atfredo.com/investors. The company undertakes no obligation to update any information discussed in this call at any time. Please note that in September, management will participate in the H.

Operator

C. Wainwright Annual Global Investment Conference virtually. And in October, Zvi will be at the LD Micro Conference in Los Angeles. Participation in investor conferences and events may be updated from time to time, and upcoming events are listed on Freightor's Investor website. In addition, on September 23rd 24th, we will be holding our annual Freightor Conference for industry executives from around the world in Spain.

Operator

If you would like to attend, please reach out to us via irfreightos.com. Today's earnings call will begin with an overview of Q2 performance by Zvi. We will then go deeper into the Shipza story with Christian and back to Zvi for insights into the current freight market trends. Next, Ran will present the financial results and the guidance for Q3 and the full year. We will conclude with Q and A.

Operator

Questions can be submitted in writing during the call using the Q and A feature in Zoom. Svi, please go ahead.

Speaker 1

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today to discuss Freitas' results for the Q2 of 2024. Today, our team is very excited to announce the acquisition of Shipstar. But let me talk about the quarter first and come back to Shipster soon. I'm pleased to report that this has been a strong quarter marked by continued operational progress and a reaffirmation of the demand for our platform in the freight industry. In Q2, we facilitated 316,500 transactions.

Speaker 1

That's a 32% increase year over year. This growth exceeded our expectations. We do believe it reflects the broader industry's shift towards digital solutions. The momentum we're seeing is not just about more transactions, it's about establishing Kratos as a critical part of the logistics ecosystem where transparency, efficiency and scale matter more than ever. The success we're seeing in transaction growth was mirrored in our gross booking value, which reached $203,400,000 in the quarter, a 31% increase compared to the same quarter last year.

Speaker 1

GBV, of course, is a metric that is affected not only by transaction growth, but also by the exogenous factor of market rates. For Q2, we had actually anticipated that gross booking value growth might lag transaction growth due to softening of market prices, but instead we saw the ongoing Red Sea crisis propping up rates. As we continue to expand our platform, we have grown the sell side of our network to 51 carriers, up from 37 in Q2 last year. On the demand side, our unique buyer users have increased by 16%, reaching approximately 19,000. This growth in both buyers and sellers on the platform highlights the network effects behind our sustained growth.

Speaker 1

The more users we have on both sides of the marketplace, the more valuable our platform becomes. And this quarter's results demonstrate again that we're on the right track. The fact that transaction growth exceeds user growth reflects the high retention we enjoy and demonstrates an exciting property of marketplace businesses namely that the number of transactions grows with the product of buyers' time sellers as each new buyer and seller creates new potential buyer seller combinations. Among the new airlines that joined the carrier count in Q2 is Singapore Airlines, which was announced in the press release in May. The press release highlighted the strong growth in digital bookings for shipments from Asia origins that we experienced on our platforms in late 2023.

Speaker 1

The fast start of 2024 continued the trend of Asian Airlines joining our platform, and we hope to see Asian bookings accelerate with Singapore's national carrier on the platform, although the Red Sea crisis is causing a short term shortage of air spot capacity in Asia, which does impact transactions in Asia at the moment. In June, we announced that COIN Airways and Thai Airways have also made their capacity available on our platform, further supporting the Asian expansion in the case of Thai and expanding webcargo by Freitas' reach in Africa, the Gulf and the Caspian regions in the case of COIN. Since I'm asked about this often, I want to mention that demand that we see for air cargo out of Asia has little to do with Chinese e commerce platforms such as Xi'in and Tenmoo as their shipments are typically made through chartering whole planes. Anyway, historically, we've been showing very strong carrier cohort analysis with carriers reaping growing benefits from being part of the platform. This is reflected in their bookings volume growing quickly by 100 of percentage points, sometimes within a few months from the initial go live.

Speaker 1

While we have full confidence in this trend and see strong fundamental business drivers for it to continue, In Q2, we have seen a handful of the newer carriers expanding capacity availability on the platform at a slower pace than originally anticipated. We also have a couple of major new airlines delay their go live purely due to delays in their internal IT projects. These delays, while temporary, lead us to be more cautious about transactions in our guidance for the second half of the year. We continue to enhance our Air Platform software technology. For example, we launched the ability for users to schedule in advance repeat bookings, which enables users to automate their air cargo operations with each booking occurring automatically at current live rates.

Speaker 1

As part of our efforts to expand to further aspects of transactions and bring more parts of the transaction onto our platform, we also launched access to insurance services via an insurance partner when booking shipments. This effort is still very much in pilot mode. In addition, in an effort to help our customers bridge the complex hybrid reality in which both negotiated contracts and spot market rates play an important role, we've improved our ability to incorporate better air cargo comparisons between spot market and negotiated rates from our rate management platform. More about contract rates when we get back to ShipStar. Our expansion efforts also include new services such as handling dangerous goods on coin and expanding supply to include temperature control shipments including pharmaceuticals across more airlines and more regions.

Speaker 1

These ongoing expansions which follow after the initial automation of general cargo are critical areas of growth for us. Furthermore, we're making significant progress in trucking bookings in the United States via 7 L Freight, the subsidiary that we acquired. And this trucking is a key area where we see substantial potential and we're already seeing strong growth and there are complements between the trucking and the air since often the 2 are booked together. And of course, the major strategic advancement in our offering is the acquisition of ShipStar. It's important to note that big importers and exporters such as manufacturers and retailers will typically procure most of their freight services on an annual fixed price contract, which is negotiated periodically in a very complex tender process.

Speaker 1

Often the tender will involve literally an excel with thousands of rows representing air, ocean and road routes worldwide. For big companies, spot buying is typically well under half their volume, especially in ocean. As we shared in the press release earlier today, Shipsters Forte is helping supply chain organizations manage their tender bidding and the negotiation process for their long term freight procurement, which is typically annually but sometimes quarterly. Shipstead really is a perfect complement for Freitas' historical emphasis on digitizing the spot market with pricing and booking. The combination of both spot and contract rates supports our efforts to be the go to digital global freight booking platform.

Speaker 1

It provides a unique truly comprehensive digital solution for freight procurement. Let me now hand over the call to Christian Wilhelm, Founder and MD of Schibstad based in Luxembourg. Christian and his Co Founder, Stefan Maratzky are the epitome of industry innovators, Banking on their extensive background in tender procurement and other functions at Kuehne and Nagel, the world's largest freight forwarder, they then founded Chipster in 2015. At Chipster, they have built a beautiful product and attracted top tier enterprise customers, which Christian will talk about. Christian and I and our teams have been sharing ideas about the industry for years, and I really couldn't be more excited to welcome them to the Freitas team.

Speaker 1

Christian, please go ahead.

Speaker 2

Thank you, Zvi, and hello to everyone. When we started Chipster, we recognized the challenge with global enterprise face, fragmented systems, reliance on manual processes and the growing complexity of the logistic landscape. The process of retailers and manufacturers negotiating annually or quarterly freight contracts were shockingly labor intensive and error prone with massive exits being emailed back and forth for many weeks. Chipza was created to address this issue head on with the next generation platform that brings together data, automation, and AI to streamline the entire procurement process. At the head of Shipstar, offering is a powerful rate management system, serving as a single source of truth for all negotiated rates.

Speaker 2

These systems not only centralized data but also enable real time marketing monitoring, allowing clients to respond swiftly to market fluctuations. The platform flexibility is a key strength, supporting various procurement events from quick rate rephrase to complex global tenders, catering to the diverse needs of the freight industry. Our platform is designed to be comprehensive solution, supporting all modes of transport, air, ocean, road and rail and integrating seamlessly with existing systems like ERP and TMS transportation management systems. This adaptability makes Shipstar a valuable tool for a wide range of industries from manufacturing and pharma to automotive and retail and to serve companies of various size procurement strategies, where that will require frequent rate, updates or prefer annual contracts with periodic rephrase. Today, over 4,600 users across more than 50 enterprise customers, 30% of which are Fortune 500 companies, rely on Chipster to manage their logistic operations more efficient and effectively.

Speaker 2

Among them are, for example, Puma, Thyssenkrupp, Rockwall, Master Builder Solution and INEX. Shipstar core value proposition at Sandro and addressed the most pressing pain points in the logistic industry. We understand the challenge of logistics supply chain disruptions, rising fuel prices and the need to meet sustainability goals and regulatory compliance. Our platform is built to print disruption and identify market opportunities proactively, allowing enterprise to negotiate better rates and optimize their operations. Through seamless connectivity enabled by flexible APIs, ShipStar integrates with existing technology ecosystems, ensuring that even the most fragmented systems can be unified.

Speaker 2

Additionally, our automated transport assignment feature optimize both cost and time making it easier for enterprise to navigate capacity constraints and streamline their logistic processes. We deliver all of this road as software as a service license model based on the modular design and price based on the customer's annual freight spend aiming to upsell additional models to our customers over time. In summary, Shipstar is more than a procurement platform. It's a strategic partner for enterprises looking to modernize their logistic operations, achieve greater efficiency and maintain a comprehensive age in a rapidly evolving market. Joining forces with Freitas is an exciting new chapter for Shipstar, and we look forward to providing the industry with more innovative and powerful solutions, particularly enabling shipment booking execution and improved market intelligence to better optimize global freight transportation for forwarders, carriers and shippers.

Speaker 2

I will now turn the call back to Sveed.

Speaker 1

Thank you, Christian, and welcome again to you, your team and your customers into the Freitas family. Shipstone and Freitas Sharevision are the digitalized freight industry, but we approach it from different ends. Freitas focusing more on spot procurement and Shipstone more on tenders, the long term contracts. This marriage creates the world's most comprehensive platform. We're thrilled about the opportunities this acquisition brings, enabling us to offer a truly comprehensive procurement platform to both Freitas and Shipstar customers and to address the estimated 50% to 70% of the massive freight market, which is served by tenders rather than spot.

Speaker 1

We see not only immediate cross sell opportunities, but also significant product integration potential. Most immediately, Freitas Terminal, our data product, is already a leader in spot price data and now it will be enriched with contract rate benchmarking. Over the coming months, we'll integrate our platforms to allow a truly seamless procurement experience across spot and contract. Let me now briefly discuss market conditions during the quarter. Let's take a look at ocean and air volumes.

Speaker 1

The chart on the left shows that global ocean freight container volumes for Q2 increased a healthy 6.5% compared to Q1 and were 5.7% higher than Q2 of last year. The relatively sharp monthly increase in May marked an early start to the ocean peak season, possibly reflecting importers seeking to avoid possible Red Sea driven delays later in the year by stocking up earlier than usual for the shopping season. While we're still seeing strength into August, we do expect volumes to start declining in September, although rates will still be propped up by the Red Sea crisis. On the right side, I also data for global air cargo volumes shows that global demand continued to grow in Q2, increasing 15% compared to Q2 last year. Volumes were more than 6% higher than in Q1.

Speaker 1

This growth in months that are typically slow season for air cargo is largely attributed to the continued strength of B2C e commerce volumes out of China, while Red Sea disruptions to ocean freight also continued to push some ocean volumes into the air. Nonetheless, we've actually seen weak spot bookings out of Asia in recent months because the Red Sea crisis has left little capacity available for the spot market. Moreover, we are seeing on our platform reduced demand in some European countries, which is presumably driven by macroeconomic conditions. And this adds to our caution in predicting volume growth in the second half of the year. Moving on to Air and Ocean price levels, let's look at the indices that we publish on our own freighter terminal.

Speaker 1

Starting with Ocean, container shipping rates as tracked by our FBX indices appear on the left measured in dollars per 40 per container. The year began relatively stable after a tumultuous Q4 last year. Reduced demand after the Lunar New Year led to a new normal and carriers adjusted to the Red Sea diversions circumventing Africa with most of the sailings. As a result, rates eased in late Q1 and early Q2. This changed in May following congestion and a spike in demand caused by importers front loading imports for the peak season, as I mentioned before.

Speaker 1

The earlier than anticipated demand, which was likely exasperated by shippers concern of the repeated 2021 holiday season when there were serious backups drove a sharp increase in ocean rates in May. As a result, global ocean rates clocked in at 65% higher than the end of Q1 and more than 2 50 percent higher than a year prior. The right chart shows air cargo rates as tracked by our Freitas Air Index, FAX, measured in dollars per kilogram. Q2 rates closed the quarter about 9% lower than at the end of Q1 and level with the end of Q2 levels last year. But while global rates eased through Q2 last year, in line with typical seasonality, prices this year climbed in June.

Speaker 1

This rate strength is partly attributable to continued B2C e commerce volume strength out of China as well as the ongoing Red Sea crisis, as we mentioned. On average though, FX was 11% lower in Q2 'twenty four compared to Q2 'twenty three. In summary, the results we've shared today are a clear indicator of our continued positive growth direction and the robustness of our strategy. Our strong performance this quarter reflects not only our ability to grow but our long term focus. The digital transformation of the freight industry is still in its early stages.

Speaker 1

And now more than ever, Freitas really is uniquely positioned to lead this industry transformation. We're confident in our ability to deliver long term value to our shareholders as we build on the foundations we've established. I look forward to sharing more news of our success with you in future quarters. Now let's turn to our CFO, Ron Shalev, who will discuss our Q2 results and our outlook for the rest of the year.

Speaker 3

Thank you, Zvi. Our 2nd quarter results surpasses expectations across all metrics, delivering both revenue growth and improved operational efficiency, reflected both in record high growth margins and strong improvement in adjusted EBITDA, where the loss was more than $2,000,000 lower than last year. We successfully completed an acquisition while maintaining focus on daily operations, showcasing our team's exceptional performance and earn adaptability. Revenue for Q22224 was $5,700,000 up 11% compared to Q22223, with each of our revenue segment, Platform and Solutions, growing 11% year on year. These two segments represent 2 different revenue models, but from a business perspective, they are closely linked, with most of our customers using platform and solutions in tandem.

Speaker 3

Our SaaS product enhanced our marketplaces by increasing user engagement and driving more transactions. This both strengthened user retention and support our platform growth. We are seeing more and more use cases where transaction fees join SaaS and data subscription, which is helping us generate additional revenues. Shipsta is also, fundamentally, a platform which connects buyer and sellers to freight services, but will be included in the future in our Solutions segment, due to its subscription revenue model. Our gross profitability this quarter has exceeded expectations.

Speaker 3

IFRS gross margins rose to 65%, an 8 percentage point increase from 57% in Q2 2023. Even more interestingly, our non IFRS gross margins, which really represents the margins we operate based on, achieved a record 72%, up 7 percentage points from 65% in the same period last year. This significant improvement stems from the economies of scale realized by our business units, which are growing and maturing as anticipated and from a higher degree of process automation. These results align with our long term model, which projects non IFRS gross margins rising to 80%. We are continuously improving the efficiency in which we are running our business.

Speaker 3

In the Q2 of this year, our adjusted EBITDA was negative $3,100,000 which is much better than the negative $5,300,000 we saw in the same period last year, and also a significant sequential improvement from the negative $3,600,000 in Q1 of this year. This is a testament to the ongoing success of the efficiency measurement, which we have implemented about 1 year ago, as well as the incredibly hard work of the team. The impact of the Schibster acquisition on our long term profitability target is positive. Although it is currently loss making, we believe that together we can accelerate our joint path to profitability. At the end of June, we had $47,300,000 in cash and short term bank deposits.

Speaker 3

That's sufficient funds for our needs, and we are still being very careful with how we spend our cash. Our goal remains to reach breakeven and start generating positive cash flow with the money we have. We are paying approximately $4,900,000 for Shipstar, in cash and in assumed negative working capital, which will be reflected in the Q3 cash flow. In addition, there is an equity consideration of approximately 640,000 shares That will also be reflected in Q3 share count. Last, the agreement includes share units to be granted to the Shipstar founders and key executives, contingent upon future business performance.

Speaker 3

With that, I will move to the Q3 and full year guidance. We expect transactions to grow 20% to 24% year on year in Q3. Our full year expectations of 25% to 27% growth in transactions are consistent with our long term model, which shows annual transaction growth of 20% to 30%. Even so, we do expect transaction growth in the second half to be lower than that of the first half for the market reasons which Zvi explained, including volume uncertainty in Europe, the disruption due to the Red Sea crisis to shipping patterns in Asia and some temporary delays in a few major airlines' rollouts due to their own internal issues. As for GBV, we expect 23% to 27% growth, just slightly lagging behind transaction growth, due to the expectation that rates are slightly lower than Q3 last year.

Speaker 3

Q3 revenues is expected to reach $5,900,000 to $6,000,000 and adjusted EBITDA a negative $3,300,000 to 3,400,000 dollars The contribution of Shipstar is expected to be reflected mostly in Q4 results, and to be approximately $800,000 in revenues and a small loss. We are pleased to guide for a lower EBITDA loss than previously expected for the full year, due to our strong execution and tight cost control. We are committed to continue balancing growth and profitability responsibly, as we make progress toward our long term goals of digitizing the entire international freight industry.

Operator

Okay. Thank you, Ran. We will now move to the Q and A session. First question comes from James Rush. James, you can unmute now.

Speaker 4

Great. Thanks, guys. Congrats on the results and the acquisition. Can you talk a little bit about the revenue and cost synergy opportunities between Freitas and Chipsta? And maybe what makes Chipsta unique relative to other tender management solutions out there?

Speaker 1

Thanks, James. This is Sveen. I appreciate the question. I think in terms of revenue, we put in the press release our specific expectations in the short term before we have a chance to really work on the synergies. So I think we said for the balance of this year about $800,000 of revenue for the remainder of this year.

Speaker 1

Ron, correct me if I get anything wrong. And that gives you an idea of what the current run rate is. However, of course, we didn't buy them for the current revenue, but because of what we can do together. So there are really good synergies, we're selling to some of the same customers, big enterprises, big retailers, big manufacturers. And we believe that our data products and their platform can be cross sold starting almost immediately.

Speaker 1

So we didn't platform can be cross sold starting almost immediately. So we didn't assume that for this year, because it's already almost September. But going into next year, we believe that we can grow together a lot more than we could have grown by ourselves, because the products really do complement very well. In terms of your second question, which I think was what's unique about ShipStar. Look, 2 things.

Speaker 1

I mean, the first thing and most important thing is that they really have a modern solution. This was the company was founded in 2015, and it's built some modern software in the cloud, fantastic customer base, as you heard, really top tier customers. Some of the tender there are other tendering platforms, you're quite right, but many of them are decades old. So this is really a modern solution. And we've come across it in the market before and had very we had fantastic things from the customers, both just being in the market and also in our due diligence.

Speaker 1

We really heard great things about the product, about the technology. So that's the first and most important thing. It really is one of the best, most modern solutions. The second thing, of course, is that there was an opportunity to acquire them. We're being careful with our cash.

Speaker 1

We can't go out and do some huge acquisition right now. But the stars aligned that we were able to acquire them at this time for a price which we can afford, which I think is an attractive price. So that was very fortunate, and we jumped when we saw that opportunity.

Speaker 4

Great. Looks like a good deal.

Speaker 1

Does that answer your question?

Speaker 4

It does. That was perfect. And then the this is probably the first time I've heard you mention U. S. Trucking in quite some time.

Speaker 4

It sounds like you're seeing some green shoots there. Can you talk about recent trends in that segment of the business? And then could you also could we also get an update on your ocean initiatives? Thanks.

Speaker 1

Yes. Okay. Good questions also. So, well, to be perfectly honest, we sort of stumbled a little bit into U. S.

Speaker 1

Trucking because we acquired a company called 7 L Freight a couple of years ago. And we mainly bought them for the air. They've got a very good solution for air cargo, which is our strongest segment. And we bought them for that. But they do, do trucking, in particular LTL, less than truckload, which is a big market in the U.

Speaker 1

S. So the last estimate I saw was $80,000,000,000 I think, but that's not up to date, so don't quote me on it. But it's that kind of order of magnitude. It's a big market. And it does complement what we do because we're less interested we are seeing green shoots in just pure LTL, and that's fine.

Speaker 1

It's not strategic for us because we're more focused on Iron Ocean. But of course, there's nothing wrong with having a growing business in trucking as well. But the strategic part, of course, is that when you do air, then there's a 1st mile and last mile. You've got a truck to the airport. You've got a truck from the airport.

Speaker 1

So obviously, trucking does connect. Every air shipment needs trucking as well. That's where it becomes strategic. Secondarily, within the United States, we've just been growing. We're just starting to really see some momentum also with domestic air cargo within the U.

Speaker 1

S. And whenever someone's looking at domestic cargo in the U. S, they want to look at an LTL alternative as well. So anytime somebody wants to truck something from Newark Airport to LAX, they say, well, one sec, what's the time and cost by air? What's the time and cost by truck?

Speaker 1

So having those alternatives just makes the air platform better because people always want to keep track of that. So that's where the there is progress in the U. S. Trucking and that's where it's strategic because it does also connect to what we're doing in air. And then sorry, I think you asked also about Ocean, James.

Speaker 1

So well, on our platform for the end customer, freighters dotcom, we do quite a lot of Ocean, but it's still mostly coming out of Excel sheets. It's not what I call fully digital. It's people are booking online, they're paying online, but the rate and the capacity is not fully live. It's still coming out of weekly Excel sheets. So we do quite a bit of Ocean, but it's not done in a fully digital way like we're doing in Air where we have a lot of airlines now over dozens of airlines where we're connected in real time.

Speaker 1

So in Ocean, we're being patient and we are seeing some progress. We do have a couple of Ocean Liners, more or less of the big ones, who we do now have what's called an API, digital connection. And we have a couple more who are promising to have that by the end of this year. So I kind of feel like we're at the same place in Ocean that we were in Air in 2019. The first carriers are going live, a few more carriers promising to go live.

Speaker 1

So I'm still optimistic we'll have the same success in Ocean that we had in Air. Ocean is even bigger. But it just seems to be in a lag of 5 years, but moving in the right direction.

Operator

Okay. So the next question is from Jason Helfstein.

Speaker 5

Hi. This is Steve on for Jason. So two questions from us. 1, you drove significant leverage in gross profit quarter. Revenue was up 11% year over year, cost of revenue down 9%.

Speaker 5

So just talk a bit, if possible, about how you achieved that leverage? And then second question, you raised your full year revenue guide while lowering GBV a bit. So are you seeing more strength in platform take rate? Or is it more a meaningful acceleration in solutions revenue that's kind of offsetting that and getting the model to kind of foot? Thanks.

Speaker 1

Okay, sure. I'm sorry, you're a little cut off. I didn't hear who was standing in for Jason.

Speaker 5

Yes.

Speaker 1

Yes, still not hearing that. Sorry, I'm just going to call you Jason, if that's okay. I apologize, the little crackle on the line. So look, I mean, the revenue the increase in revenue guidance for the year is also due to the Schibster acquisition who are contributing. So that was the main thing that helped.

Speaker 1

The revenue is growing, as you see, on according to our expectations, a little over in the first half. And but the extra the raising of the expectations for the second half is also driven by the Shipster acquisition, which is going to contribute to that. In terms of the increase in gross profit, I think there's 2 things there. 1 is scale. The bigger we get I think that's what you're asking about, the increase in sort of the profit margin.

Speaker 1

And that's partly scale. The bigger we get, the more economies of scale that we have. But also, of course, it's a factor of our continued investment in research and development. We're investing a lot of money in software. And partly that's of course, most of it is providing features to our customers, but some of it is also automating our own operations.

Speaker 1

And so we're able now in AI, for example, well over 90%. I don't have the number at my fingertips, but well over 90% of bookings go through with no human interaction at all. And some of the things that used to need human support, because our biggest cost of goods sold is actually customer support people. That's our biggest cost of goods sold. And that's just getting less as we just get more and more automated in how we support our operations, if that makes sense.

Speaker 5

Yes, perfect. And it's Steve on for Jason. Thanks very much.

Speaker 1

Thanks, Steve.

Operator

Okay. It looks like there are no more questions. So thanks to everyone for joining. You're always free to ask us additional questions at irfretos.com. Have a good day.

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Key Takeaways

  • In Q2, Freitas facilitated 316,500 transactions (up 32% year-over-year) and achieved a gross booking value of $203.4 million (up 31%), driven by expanded network effects with 51 carriers (vs. 37) and ~19,000 unique buyers.
  • The acquisition of Shipstar brings enterprise-grade tender procurement and contract rate management to Freitas’ spot booking platform, creating cross-sell opportunities and a comprehensive (spot + contract) freight procurement solution.
  • Financial results beat expectations: Q2 revenue grew 11% to $5.7 million, non-IFRS gross margin reached a record 72%, and adjusted EBITDA loss narrowed to –$3.1 million from –$5.3 million a year ago.
  • Market conditions remain mixed: global ocean volumes rose 5.7% YoY with early peak-season front-loading, air cargo volumes increased 15% YoY as the Red Sea crisis propped up rates, though spot capacity out of Asia tightened.
  • Guidance for Q3 calls for 20–24% transaction growth and 23–27% GBV growth YoY, with full-year targets of 25–27% transaction growth and a smaller EBITDA loss thanks to disciplined cost control and the Shipstar contribution.
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Earnings Conference Call
Freightos Q2 2024
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