Pelicargo Inc.

Pelicargo is a logistics-tech company in the pre-seed stage founded by Jon Acquaviva, Shinji Angata, and Edward Wang, who all met at MIT. Its air freight director, Maruf Alikhan, hails from over 20 years of experience in freight forwarding, and its commercial director, Toby Raworth, hails from 20+ years of experience in freight forwarding, including at Expeditors, HAE, and DSV.

The company provides digital procurement services to small and mid-sized freight forwarders in the United States, helping to increase their quote throughput and business. Pelicargo’s “white glove” digital concierge service actively shops more than 80 airlines and 500 destinations for spot/dynamic/promo rates, ensuring customers get the best deals. The company transparently provides all rates in exchange for a monthly service fee.

Pelicargo founder Jon Acquaviva previously managed an overseas business unit at Schlumberger that required significant international air freight. He routinely waited days for a simple quote and was frustrated with the lack of visibility into the cargo’s journey. He saw a massive opportunity where cargo airplanes fly half empty in many trade lanes due to old-fashioned sales and processes. Jon and Shinji met during an entrepreneurship course at MIT and then met Edward, their technical co-founder, in the MIT dorms during a random encounter. Pelicargo was incorporated in 2021, went through the MIT delta-V accelerator, and raised a pre-seed round in the Fall of 2021. It then started commercial operations after building its initial digital platform in the Summer of 2022. Pelicargo has now empowered its customers to book over $1 million in air freight in over 500,000 kg and 700+ shipments.

Currently, Pelicargo services small and mid-sized freight forwarders based out of North America doing international air exports, helping them grow their business by procuring rates from its vast network of over 50 carriers to match them with the best spot, dynamic, and promotional rates. Its augmented intelligent service also provides extra insights, like highlighting alternative promotional rates via different gateways.

Pelicargo services its customers holistically and ensures their overall success rather than just in booking, and can intelligently advise its customers in aspects other than booking, including but not limited to dangerous goods, temperature control, project cargo, track & trace visibility, dimensionality, service levels, security, customs clearance. It follows through on every transaction to ensure success (e.g., following up with airlines).

The industry is witnessing a shift towards a more dynamic, customer-centric approach. Shipment patterns are continuously changing in response to industry developments such as just-in-time supply chains and e-commerce, and every one of these shipments is unique. Additionally, stakeholders in the entire supply chain ecosystem, including consumers, shippers, air carriers, truckers, ground handlers, and brokers, are demanding ever-increasing levels of visibility.

In light of these shifts, Pelicargo aims to accommodate its freight forwarders for holistic success rather than just booking success. The company aims to meet its freight-forwarding customers where they are and leverage the best aspects of relational and transactional success. It aims to humanize this transactional industry through kind intelligent automation, allowing it to provide seamless and end-to-end solutions for any situation. Finally, in an age of accelerating climate change, the company hopes its efforts will boost load factors and improve environmental sustainability.

Pelicargo is proud to have enabled its customers to grow their businesses and simplify their operations. An example of this is Adrian Lara from the Air Department of Arc Air Logistics, and one of Pelicargo’s valued customers, who has said: “Since we started [working with] Pelicargo, our profit has increased 3x and the amount of our shipments has increased by 50%. On several shipments, we have been able to save 60-80 % of air freight cost!”