Berlin-based Conlio announced a €6.4 million ($7.1 million) funding round on Tuesday for software that verifies road freight documents before forwarders pay carriers and invoice customers. Piton Capital led the round.
Conlio calls that check one of logistics’ most manual processes and says it slows payments and ties up working capital for forwarders and the carriers they hire. The round comes as weakness in European freight markets led Trimble this week to lower its full-year growth forecast.
Haufe Group Ventures joined the round, along with WaVe-X, WALTER GROUP’s venture arm, and F-LOG Ventures, FIEGE’s venture fund. Existing investors System.One, Puzzle Ventures, Booom Ventures, and Yellow also took part. Conlio works with midsize and enterprise road freight forwarders in Germany, the U.K., Spain, and Denmark.
Founder and CEO Claudio Consul said context is what has made the check hard to automate.
“Freight is one of the world’s largest industries, and digitalization has transformed large parts of it. But the industry is full of edge cases and decisions that depend on context, which has made true end-to-end automation difficult with traditional software. AI changes that,” Consul said in the release.
How forwarders check freight paperwork
European road freight runs on the CMR consignment note. Under the 1956 CMR Convention, the note confirms the contract of carriage and is made out in three original copies signed by the sender and the carrier.
Before a forwarder pays a carrier or bills a customer, it checks that the CMR, the proof of delivery, and the carrier’s invoice are complete and correct Those documents arrive in different formats and languages, often carry handwritten notes, and are checked against rules that vary by customer, route, and geography
A single CMR can carry up to four dates, recording when it was issued, when the goods were collected, when they were delivered, and other events in transit. Conlio’s software works out which event each date refers to, then checks it against that shipment’s requirements.
What Conlio claims for forwarders
Conlio says it can automate more than 90% of freight document checks. By the company’s estimate, the software can raise a forwarder’s EBIT by up to 30%, or more than €1 million a year for a forwarder with €100 million in revenue.
But the release does not name customers, disclose revenue, or say how those figures were measured. It also cites a €430 billion European road freight market, a 2025 forecast from Transport Intelligence. The firm’s European Road Freight Transport 2026 report puts the 2025 figure at €440.4 billion and projects 1.6% growth this year.
