Nexcade raises £4.5m led by Project A Ventures with support from Connect Ventures
This article covers Nexcade, a startup that has raised £4.5m in a seed funding round to accelerate development of AI agents that automate freight forwarding workflows. The initiative aims to support freight forwarders by automating repeatable tasks within forwarding workflows, affecting logistics operators and supply chain teams across the UK, Europe and the US.
Nexcade has raised £4.5m in a seed funding round to accelerate development of AI agents that automate freight forwarding workflows. The funding will be used to expand the product, hire across the UK, Europe and the US, and roll out new agents for customer service, pricing and tendering — a response to persistent operational friction in global logistics.
Why it matters
Logistics accounts for roughly 11% of global GDP and is exposed to political unrest, instability and frequent supply chain disruption. Freight forwarders sit at the operational centre of that complexity, coordinating shipments between customers, carriers, agents, warehouses and customs teams. Much of the work still runs on emails, attachments and spreadsheets, which makes scaling consistency difficult and creates room for errors that erode margin.
Nexcade’s approach is relevant because it targets that operational knot rather than trying to replace freight businesses. By automating specific, repeatable tasks inside existing workflows, the company aims to make forwarders faster and less error prone while leaving human teams in control of exceptions.
Inside the product
Nexcade builds what it calls AI agents that operate inside forwarding workflows. Agents read customer requests, assemble shipment context from multiple sources, ask clarifying questions, procure rates and prepare quotes. Existing quoting and booking agents handle spot quotes and shipment order entry. The company says customers keep final control over decisions and margins.
Since emerging from stealth in October 2025, Nexcade has moved from design partnerships into production with forwarders including XPO, Zencargo, Cardinal Global Logistics and CargoTrans across Europe and the US. XPO is a global logistics provider; Zencargo is a digital freight forwarder; Cardinal Global Logistics and CargoTrans are traders in international forwarding — all are cited as live users of Nexcade’s tools. The business reports it has more than tripled ARR since the start of the year as customers expand deployment across divisions.
Nexcade is also launching Atlas, a data insights tool that analyses communication data to show where teams spend time, where processes break down and where AI agents can deliver the largest commercial effect. The company plans new agents for customer service, pricing and tendering alongside its quoting and booking capabilities.
Who are the investors?
The round was led by Project A Ventures, with participation from Connect Ventures, MMC Ventures and Entropy Industrial Capital. The financing also included angel investors from logistics and AI companies, among them freight executives and founders from Vanguard Logistics, n8n, Altana, Sedna, UiPath and Cleo. Those angels bring domain expertise in freight operations (Vanguard Logistics) and automation and orchestration (n8n, UiPath, Cleo), which the company says helps with product validation and go-to-market introductions.
Philipp Werner, Partner at Project A, said:
What makes freight forwarding such a compelling market for AI is not just the amount of manual work. It is the context needed to do that work well. Every quote, rate request and exception depends on information spread across systems, emails, customer history and commercial judgement. Nexcade is building agents that capture and apply that context inside real forwarding workflows. Dan, Tasho and the team have moved from thesis to customer traction at remarkable speed. We are excited to back them as they build the AI workflow layer for global freight.
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Founder perspective
Dan Bailey, Co-founder & CEO at Nexcade, said:
Our AI agents are built for specific forwarding jobs. Each agent understands the shipment context, has the tools it needs, and can be tuned to how each customer works. That helps teams respond faster, protect margin and win more business. The market has moved quickly from AI curiosity to AI urgency. Forwarders know they need to use AI, but many are still working out where it will create the most value. Atlas gives them a new lens to find tangible and significant commercial impact.
The bigger picture
Nexcade’s raise sits alongside growing investor interest in using AI to automate specialised enterprise workflows. Freight forwarding is attractive to investors and founders because the work is high volume and highly contextual, which makes simple automation brittle but creates room for differentiated workflow automation when context can be captured reliably.
The company’s expansion plans across the UK, Europe and the US reflect where demand for freight automation is concentrated: established logistics hubs with large incumbent forwarders looking to digitise operations. For UK and European supply chain startups, the deal is another signal that venture capital is chasing applied AI that ties directly to revenue and margin improvement rather than general-purpose tooling.
As forwarders confront tighter margins and more volatile trade flows, expect further funding and partnerships focused on embedding AI inside operational workflows rather than replacing them. This round underscores a pragmatic strand of AI investment that aims to plug automation into existing logistics processes across the region and beyond.
They've invested in Nexcade
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| Investors | Investment Focus | Startup Investments | Round Size | Connect |
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 Connect Ventures( ) Connect Ventures is a venture capital firm focused on supporting exceptional pro... London  | ||||
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