Berlin's Conlio Raises $6.9M to Automate Freight Payments

Jan de Vries · 2026-11-03

Conlio, a Berlin-based startup, just raised €6.4 million (about $6.9 million) to bring AI-powered financial automation to road freight forwarders across Europe. The company's platform turns messy freight documents into clean, verified data and automates the financial workflows that follow. It's a big deal for an industry that still runs on paper and manual checks. The round was led by Piton Capital, with participation from Haufe Group Ventures and logistics heavyweights WaVe-X (WALTER GROUP) and F-LOG Ventures (the venture arm of FIEGE). Existing investors System.One, Puzzle Ventures, Booom Ventures, and Yellow also joined in. This brings Conlio's total funding to €6.4 million. ### Why freight forwarders need this now Road freight is a massive market—roughly €430 billion ($463 billion) in Europe alone. But forwarders operate on razor-thin margins. Every shipment generates a trail of documents: CMRs, proofs of delivery, carrier invoices. Before paying carriers or billing customers, forwarders must check that everything is complete and correct. The problem? Documents arrive in different formats and languages, often with handwritten notes, and rules vary by customer, route, and geography. "Freight is one of the world's largest industries, and digitalisation has transformed large parts of it," says Dr. Claudio Consul, founder and CEO of Conlio. "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 knows the pain firsthand. At sennder, he saw how much operational complexity sits behind freight documentation, settlement, and payments. With Conlio, he aims to turn that complexity into verified data and automated workflows. "Our long-term ambition is to change how money moves across supply chains," he says. ### The AI advantage Conlio's platform can automate more than 90% of freight document checks, according to the company. That means fewer manual errors, faster invoicing, and catching overpayments. The impact? Up to 30% increase in EBIT for forwarders—more than €1 million ($1.08 million) annually for a company with €100 million ($108 million) in revenue. Michael Macklin, investor at Piton Capital, explains why they backed Conlio: "Road freight forwarding handles huge volumes of transactions dependent on manual checks, and many people have been stumped on how to fix this. What we liked most about Conlio and Claudio was that they know the problem inside out, from the perspective of their customers, while also having the technologist's insight on how it can be done differently." He adds: "The product is already embedded in customers' daily operations and we believe that can build a platform with powerful network effects as more participants join and more transactions flow through it." ### A hot sector for investment Conlio's raise is part of a broader wave of investment in freight software and AI-enabled financial operations. In 2026 alone, several European startups have secured significant funding: - Procuros (Germany) raised €20 million ($21.6 million) to automate supply-chain data exchange and invoicing. - cargo.one (Germany) secured nearly €17 million ($18.3 million) for its multimodal freight platform. - Cargofy (Ukraine) raised €5.2 million ($5.6 million) for AI-powered freight operations. - Vectrix (Belgium) secured €1.15 million ($1.24 million) for transport-order automation. - Plinto (Denmark) and Zalos (UK) raised €2.9 million ($3.1 million) and €3.1 million ($3.3 million) respectively for AI-enabled financial workflows. Together, these rounds represent approximately €49.4 million ($53.3 million) in new funding, excluding Conlio's investment. Clearly, investors see huge potential in digitizing freight's financial backbone. ### What's next for Conlio? Founded in 2023, Conlio plans to use the fresh capital to expand across Europe. The company's AI is already helping forwarders reduce manual processing costs and accelerate invoicing. As more participants join the platform, network effects could make it even more valuable. For an industry that's been slow to digitize, Conlio's approach could be a game-changer. By turning documents into verified data, they're not just automating tasks—they're enabling forwarders to focus on growth instead of paperwork. And in a market where every percentage point of margin counts, that's a compelling proposition.