Xeneta

Xeneta operates a freight rate benchmarking and market intelligence platform covering ocean and air freight. It aggregates real contracted and spot rates contributed by shippers and freight forwarders worldwide, anonymises and aggregates them, and turns them into lane-level benchmarks that procurement, logistics, supply chain, finance and commercial teams use to judge whether the rates they pay or quote are in line with the market. Carriers are excluded from contributing data, which the company presents as a basis for the neutrality of its benchmarks.

Beyond rate benchmarking, the platform includes tender support (bulk upload and benchmarking of thousands of lanes, bid validation), an Integrated Rate Management System for centralising and sharing rates across teams, forecasting of contracted rates up to three months ahead and spot rates ten days out, market outlooks up to six months ahead on key trades, and budget/scenario tools across modes. Xeneta Ocean Schedules uses AIS vessel tracking and structural carrier schedules to measure service performance, including schedule reliability, blank sailings, announced versus actual transit times and port call consistency. The company also markets AI-driven agents and alerts that flag outliers, overpriced trades and risk hotspots by lane, supplier or region. Data is accessible through the web application and via ocean and air market data APIs, supported by a public help centre.

Xeneta also publishes market commentary — weekly ocean container shipping market updates, ocean and air outlook reports, webinars and a podcast — and its analysts, including chief analyst Peter Sand, senior shipping analyst Emily Stausbøll and chief air freight officer Niall van de Wouw, are frequently quoted in outlets such as CNBC, Bloomberg, Reuters, the Financial Times, the New York Times and Time.

Founding story

The founders set out in 2012 to tackle a market in which ocean and air freight prices and service levels were opaque: carriers knew what the market was paying while shippers generally did not, leaving teams to spend hours trying to establish the real market rate. Co-founder and CEO Patrik Berglund, whose background is in freight forwarding, has described the mission as bringing transparency and a shared view of market reality so that negotiation is fairer and planning more accurate.

Business model

Subscription access to a freight market intelligence platform combined with a data contribution model: customers who share their contracted freight rates enrich the benchmark dataset and in return can compare their own contracted positions against market benchmarks. Contribution is optional — many customers use the benchmarks, market trends and carrier performance data purely as consumers. Contributed data is anonymised and aggregated, and carriers are excluded from contributing.

Platform access sold to shippers, freight forwarders, liners and airlines, with data also delivered through APIs.

Traction

The website reports 800m+ ocean and air freight rates, 170k+ port-to-port pairs, 60k+ airport-to-airport pairs and benchmarking against rates paid by 700+ global shippers, with 200+ employees across five offices. At the time of its 2022 funding round the company reported 300 million data points from several hundred large shipping companies and more than $40 billion of procurement on the platform.

Latest developments

Recent activity includes publication of Ocean Outlook and Air Outlook H2 2026 reports, ongoing weekly ocean container shipping market updates through August 2026, and marketing of AI-powered agents, forecasting of contracted rates up to three months and spot rates ten days ahead, and the Xeneta Integrated Rate Management System.