Forto

Forto is a provider of digitized freight forwarding and supply chain solutions, offering B2B sea, air and rail freight transport together with additional services, logistics management and sustainability options such as climate visibility, biofuel-based transportation and ocean plastic prevention. Customers book and manage shipments through Forto's proprietary transport management platform, which provides shipment visibility from booking to delivery, proactive notifications, centralized documentation, consolidated reporting and real-time data updates. The company was originally founded under the name FreightHub in 2016.

FortoLabs is Forto's AI-native SaaS platform, launched to bring agentic AI technologies developed and tested inside Forto's own operations to the wider logistics market. Its first product, LumoDoc, is an intelligent document processing (IDP) solution that analyzes inbound emails or API traffic, detects and categorizes logistics documents, extracts the relevant data and syncs it in structured form into downstream operational systems. LumoDoc supports common logistics document types including bills of lading, packing lists, customs documents and invoices, and the company states efficiency gains of up to 90% depending on the use case. FortoLabs states that its products are engineered in Germany and run exclusively on servers within the EU, and that further solutions beyond document processing are in development, all trained on logistics-specific data sets.

Within its own operations, Forto is developing "Flash by Forto", described as an AI-powered transport management agent covering booking request handling, vessel selection and document handling. The booking agent scans incoming emails, identifies booking requests and extracts details for automated entry into Forto's systems; the vessel selection agent analyzes structured and unstructured data to recommend vessels; and the document handling agent extracts key information from shipping documents and updates shipment records.

Founding story

Forto was founded in 2016 under the name FreightHub. Co-founder and CEO Michael Wax previously co-founded the sensor and analytics company Konux at age 23 before starting Forto to apply technology to global logistics; early strategy focused on a niche segment of Amazon FBA importers to validate the model before broader expansion.

Business model

Forto operates as a digital freight forwarder, moving customer cargo by sea, air and rail and providing related logistics management and sustainability services through its own platform. With FortoLabs, the company additionally productizes internally developed AI capabilities and sells them as standalone Software-as-a-Service offerings to third parties across the supply chain.

Freight forwarding and supply chain services for B2B shippers, complemented by SaaS products sold through FortoLabs, whose first offering LumoDoc is marketed as a subscription-style software solution rather than an in-house build; the site provides an ROI calculator comparing the cost of manual document processing.

Traction

Forto reports approximately 2,500 customers, coverage of more than 100 countries and 33,000 shipments operated over its platform in 2023. More than half of its customers use its carbon-offsetting offer. Its AI organization combines over 150 technology staff with more than 200 logistics professionals. FortoLabs states LumoDoc delivers up to 90% efficiency gains depending on the use case and was proven in Forto's high-volume internal operations before external release.

Latest developments

On June 1, 2026, Forto announced the launch of FortoLabs, a platform offering agentic AI supply chain technologies as SaaS, with LumoDoc as the first product available to transport management software providers, customs agencies and brokers, freight forwarders, carriers and shippers. Additional SaaS solutions are stated to be in development. Forto is also building "Flash by Forto", an AI-powered transport management agent for booking, vessel selection and document handling within its own operations.