Freightera team is happy to receive a new award recognizing our impact in 2021. See the full interview our co-founder Zhenya Beck had with Andrew Jacob from DotCom magazine.

Please read the official DotCom Magazine statement below.

2021 Impact Company of The Year Awards celebrate shapeshifting entrepreneurs and their companies. When a company like yours makes impact, not only are you helping your clients, but you are also helping the world become a better place with your selfless commitment to your brand and employees. We are honored to award your company the DotCom Magazine 2021 Impact Company of The Year Award.

At DotCom Magazine, we believe entrepreneurs are the heartbeat of the world in so many ways. We believe it is a world where risk takers like you must be lauded, saluted, and respected. As an outstanding entrepreneur, you know that nothing is given to you. You know it is up to the entrepreneur to get up every morning and give an amazing effort. You know that every minute of our lives is not guaranteed. Our time is a blessing to be cherished and made the most of.

We hope that making the DotCom Magazine Impact Company of The Year Award 2021 will become a yearly event for you. We know you and your business will go from good to good. Now, more than ever, it is important to focus in on your clients, and make this the best year that they ever had. After all, that is what entrepreneurs do… we are focused with laser like vision to do what is best for our clients.

As a 2021 DotCom Magazine Impact Company of 2021 award winner, we know you will be bold. We know you will continue to make a difference. We know you will continue to build. We also know that when you hit a challenge, you will respond with grace and dignity and quite frankly, knock down the brick wall in front of you like you have always done!

Zhenya Beck and Eric Beckwitt, Co-Founders of Freightera, shared the story behind their brand and their best advice on branding, naming and domain names.

What is the story behind Freightera?

Freightera is the first lower emission freight marketplace in North America. We make freight transportation easier for shippers and greener for the environment.

We are a mission-driven company. Freight is one of the largest sources of greenhouse gas emissions and air pollution. We experienced it firsthand when our son developed life-threatening asthma in Northern California, where the air was highly polluted with ground-level ozone. We moved our family to Vancouver, Canada, for better air.

When did you start thinking about your brand name and how did you settle on Freightera?

I previously ran a web development company with my husband Eric Beckwitt, Freightera Co-Founder and CEO. We helped many customers with the design, development, brand, and marketing of new companies. We love to travel, and while our kids were small, we took the whole family abroad, camping, and on many great road trips to national parks and scenic places in Canada and the United States. It was the best education and quality time together. We found that trips were the best for generating the most creative ideas, and the name Freightera was born on a road trip from Vancouver to California. We wanted a name that had “freight” in it. We brainstormed together, asked friends and family for input and feedback on some of the other names we considered. The Freight-Terra word combination came up and it felt right. We simplified it for easier spelling to Freightera.

What was the reason to get the domain name Freightera.com for your brand? 

It communicates what we do. It has “freight” at the root of it. You can also think of it as a feminine version of “freighter” – a freight shipping vessel. You can also hear “terra”, Latin for Earth, and “era” – a long, distinct period in history, an epoch. These are positive, strong associations.

VANCOUVER, British Columbia, January 12, 2021 (Newswire.com) – Freightera, a leading online freight marketplace, is pleased to announce Jonathan Shakes, former Director of Product Management and Director of Software Engineering at Amazon, has joined the executive team as Head of Product Development. The 14-year Amazon veteran had a range of executive responsibilities including technology development for warehousing, fulfillment center, supply chain, logistics, and the Amazon marketplace platform. As Head of Product Development, Jonathan Shakes will use his customer-focused computer science and logistics leadership to drive Freightera’s technology forward.

Colleen Byrum, who built the customer service division at Amazon from the ground up, has joined Freightera as Chief of Staff. Byrum is an expert on high-growth technology companies and customer service. As Chief of Staff, the 30-year industry veteran Byrum brings her deep expertise in managing technology companies across multiple domains: organizational development, customer service, operations, and recruiting, maximizing the value of company advisors, and anticipating what comes next.

Freightera CEO Eric Beckwitt notes, “The addition of these two senior technology and service executives propels Freightera forward in our mission to create the best online marketplace for freight with an emphasis on reduction of greenhouse gas emissions.”

VANCOUVER, B.C., Nov. 18, 2020 /PRNewswire/ — Freightera, the innovative online freight marketplace, just won the 2020 Deloitte Technology Fast 50™ award. Freightera revenue grew 678% from 2016 to 2019.

Freightera provides Canadian and U.S. business shippers instant access to fixed-cost, all-inclusive freight quotes from the best-performing and lowest-emission transport companies. With a proven track record and hundreds of excellent reviews from delighted customers, Freightera helps businesses save time, lower shipping costs, and decrease CO2 emissions.

“This award is a special recognition of our success and will help us spread the word about Freightera, a triple bottom line company, offering an automated solution for businesses that reduces both carbon footprint and the cost of shipping,” said Freightera CEO Eric Beckwitt.

To qualify for the Deloitte Technology Fast 50 ranking, companies must have been in business for at least four years, have revenues of at least $5 million, be headquartered in Canada, own proprietary technology, conduct research, and development activities in Canada, and invest a minimum of five percent of gross revenues in R&D.

2020 has been a year of achievements for Freightera. In this challenging time, Freightera won the Consumer Choice Award in the freight brokerage category in Vancouver, placed among top tech companies in BC in the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) sector by Rocket Builders for the second year in a row, and made The Globe and Mail’s list of Canada’s top growing companies. Freightera also rolled out a SaaS model offering value-added paid memberships for Canadian and U.S. business shippers and logistics companies.

VANCOUVER, BC, Sept. 28, 2020 /PRNewswire/ — Freightera, with a newly launched SaaS model for Canadian and US business shippers and 3-year revenue growth of 678%, placed 80 of 400 in Canada’s Top Growing Companies 2020 by The Globe and Mail.

“Freightera is honored to join the ranks of Canada’s top growth companies, placing alongside firms like Shopify (No. 98 in 2019), and Canada Goose (No. 269 in 2020)”, noted CEO Eric Beckwitt, “We are especially pleased to see a large group of Vancouver and British Columbia companies making the list, including fellow graduates of the BC Tech Hypergrowth Accelerator”.

The Freightera marketplace provides business shippers instant access to fixed-cost, all-inclusive freight quotes from the best performing and lowest emission transport companies. Over 13,000 businesses use Freightera to ship between 23,000 communities in Canada and the US. With hundreds of excellent reviews from delighted customers, Freightera helps businesses to significantly lower their cost of shipping and decrease CO2 emissions, while leading in customer satisfaction and ease of use.

Freightera has also been recognized as the 3rd fastest-growing company in British Columbia, and among the top 5 automated freight brokerage solutions in North America.

Earlier this year, Freightera launched a SaaS model with value-added membership plans and a rewards program for volume shippers. New plans allow businesses to access new services and work more efficiently as a team.

Earlier this month, Dan Goodwill’s Transportation Consulting posted an article about our newly-added Membership Plans and how they can help shippers in Covid-19 times:

On July 7, 2020, Freightera, North America’s rapidly growing online freight marketplace, announced the enhancement of its popular free platform with value-added paid memberships and a rewards program. Freightera’s customers can now subscribe to a range of Membership Plans that provide enhanced freight transportation services, tailored to their unique requirements.

Freightera is one of the top growth companies in the North American freight transportation industry, having increased revenues 240% per year since 2015, making it the third fastest-growing company in British Columbia. Frost & Sullivan identified Freightera as one of the top five “automated on-demand” freight platforms in North America and the only system that offers fixed-cost, all-inclusive quotes direct from transport companies of all sizes and modes.

Covid-19 Considerations

There is a concern in the freight industry that as the North American economies recover from the pandemic, this may lead to capacity shortages. Shippers who work with a limited set of asset-based providers may experience challenges in covering their loads. Similarly, the economic downturn is causing companies to reduce staff. Shippers who become Freightera members may lessen some of these concerns by utilizing the company’s streamlined automated shipping processes, their broad range of services, and their extensive network of carriers.

Freightera’s Membership Plan initiative has again demonstrated its industry leadership, customer-centric focus, and innovative approach to meeting the needs of North American shippers.

VANCOUVER, British Columbia, July 15, 2020 /PRNewswire/ — Freightera, North America’s rapidly growing online freight marketplace, just enhanced its popular free platform with value-added paid memberships and a rewards program.

“I am pleased to announce our latest release that enhances your experience and makes bookings more rewarding and fun,” noted Freightera CEO Eric Beckwitt, updating Freightera’s 12,700+ business shippers. “It also expands our plans and services beyond classic free Freightera with more choices for everyone.”

Late in 2019, the company surveyed its top shippers and found they were interested in value-added services and paid plans if Freightera was to offer them. Freightera’s team created a game plan and completed the implementation at the end of the second quarter, despite the added stress of COVID-19 disruption.

“It’s great to see a positive response from our shippers,” noted Beckwitt. “Automated bookings are up sharply, and we have renewed interest from investors.”

Because most businesses are affected by COVID-19, Freightera is offering three-month free trials of new paid SMB Plus and SMB Priority plans.

VANCOUVER, British Columbia, April 15, 2020 (Newswire.com) – Freightera, a leading online freight marketplace offering instant freight quotes and streamlining shipping operations for manufacturers, wholesalers and distributors in Canada and the U.S., was recognized among BC’s top private companies in the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) sector by Rocket Builders for the second year in a row.

According to Rocket Builders, the annual 2020 “Ready to Rocket” lists “provide accurate predictions of private companies that will likely experience significant growth, venture capital investment or acquisition by a major player in the coming year … The “Ready to Rocket” lists are the only predictive lists of this kind in North America, requiring many months of sector and company analysis.”

“Freightera is honored to be recognized among the leading technology companies in British Columbia,” said Freightera CEO Eric Beckwitt. Some of BC’s most famous companies were acquired while on a Rocket list or graduated to become unicorns. This year’s lists feature 200 companies across five sectors: Information and Communications Technology, Cleantech, Life Science, Digital Health and Agri-Food.

Rocket Builders started its recognition program 18 years ago during the stock market downturn of 2002, post “the Internet bubble,” a time somewhat reminiscent of the current COVID-19 crisis. Rocket Builders’ partners Geoffrey Hansen, Dave Thomas, and Thealzel Lee covered the highlights for each sector, announced the recognized companies, and commented on COVID-19 related changes in the markets, investor interests, and growth predictions.

VANCOUVER, British Columbia, April 14, 2020 (Newswire.com) – Freightera, North America’s freight marketplace start-up, just opened a Source Locally Community for its members, thousands of manufacturers, distributors and retailers in Canada and the United States. This project to facilitate local sourcing was started in response to the COVID-19 disruption of conventional and global supply chains.

The company realized that many of its customers needed help with sales to keep the doors open. At first, they just wanted to promote customers’ products so others in the community could purchase them. They noticed from what was shipping on the Freightera platform that customers had an inventory of products missing from supermarket shelves and also medical supplies needed by governments and hospitals.

“On March 24, we emailed to over 10,000 shippers in our marketplace asking them if we could promote them and their products,” continued Beckwitt. “We received a positive response and immediately started work on an internal community where our customers could see what products and supplies were still shipping, indicating the company is still in business and has the product for sale.”

On April 1, Freightera received a call from the BC Government’s COVID-19 Supply Hub to purchase medical and essential supplies. The team immediately sent this information to its shipper community. Hundreds of members responded. One of them even had millions of the coveted N95 masks. The company is currently working with the government agency to get these supplies to where they are most needed.

The Freightera Source Locally Community is a free service open to all registered shippers on the platform.

On Mar 3, 2020, Freightera will participate in the Urban Freight forum hosted by the Pembina Institute at The Globe and Mail Centre in Toronto.

According to the Pembina Institute, the forum will ”catalyze how urban freight can be differently managed in our cities, both now and in the future, [and] gather a cross-section of the most influential city-builders, transportation planners, policy practitioners and recognized sustainability leaders in business and industry.”

The forum participants will talk about the main challenges in urban planning, land use, and transportation, and related policies and implementations. Forum topics will range from ”municipal leadership on urban freight and goods movement, alternative delivery and operating models, opportunities for new and emerging delivery modes and technologies, and showcasing successful partnership for implementation.”

As Freightera’s mission is to make freight shipping sustainable and green, we are honored for this peer-to-peer learning opportunity.

Eric Beckwitt will be the first of five featured speakers on developing Cargo Tech trends, and will seek to ”help demystify technological complexities, and potentially help enhance your supply chain in the digital age”, according to Cargo Logistics Canada.

Freightera CEO will speak about digital transformation on Wednesday, Feb 5 2020, on the Tech Hub Stage, between 10:30 am and 11:15 am.

The 7th Cargo Logistics Canada Expo & Conference will be held at Vancouver Convention Centre from Feb 4 to Feb 6 2020, will consist of networking events, a conference program, and various exhibits.

Awesome news for Freightera blog and our readers! Our post Ship a Pallet in 15 Easy Steps: Quick Guide for Pallet Shipping for Beginners was selected among thousands of articles as one of the finalists in the Transport/Freight category. We want to thank everybody who voted for us!

Sadly, we didn’t win, but we had a chance to compete with some of the top online resources for freight shipping, and we learned a lot from reading their articles. We’ve found them relevant and educational, and we’re hereby sharing them with our readers.