Conlio Banks €6.4M to Automate Freight Document Checks

Berlin-based Conlio has raised €6.4 million ($7.1 million) to automate one of freight forwarding's most stubborn back-office chores: checking road freight documents before forwarders pay carriers and invoice customers. Piton Capital led the round, announced Tuesday.

The company says document verification is among logistics' most manual processes, one that slows payments and ties up working capital for forwarders and the carriers they hire. The funding lands the same week Trimble cut its full-year growth forecast on weakness in European freight markets — a soft market pushing forwarders to squeeze costs wherever they can.

Who put in the money

Haufe Group Ventures joined the round, along with WaVe-X, the venture arm of WALTER GROUP, and F-LOG Ventures, FIEGE's venture fund. Existing investors System.One, Puzzle Ventures, Booom Ventures, and Yellow also participated.

That investor list matters. Two logistics groups — WALTER GROUP and FIEGE — now back the idea that forwarders can hand most document checks to software and bill customers faster. Conlio already works with midsize and enterprise road freight forwarders in Germany, the U.K., Spain, and Denmark.

What does the software actually check?

European road freight runs on the CMR consignment note. Under the 1956 CMR Convention, the note confirms the contract of carriage and comes in three original copies signed by sender and carrier.

Before a forwarder pays a carrier or bills a customer, it checks that the CMR, the proof of delivery, and the carrier's invoice are complete and correct, according to Conlio. The documents arrive in different formats and languages, often carry handwritten notes, and get checked against rules that vary by customer, route, and geography.

A single CMR can carry up to four dates — when it was issued, when goods were collected, when they were delivered, and other transit events. Conlio's software works out which event each date refers to, then checks it against that shipment's requirements.

Founder and CEO Claudio Consul said context is what has made the check hard to automate. "Freight is one of the world's largest industries, and digitalization has transformed large parts of it. 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," he said.

What are the claimed gains?

Conlio says it can automate more than 90% of freight document checks. By the company's own estimate, the software can lift a forwarder's EBIT by up to 30% — more than €1 million a year for a forwarder with €100 million in revenue.

Buyer beware on those numbers. The release names no customers, discloses no revenue, and doesn't say how the figures were measured. The 90% automation rate and EBIT gains remain Conlio's estimates until forwarders using the product report results.

The release cites a €430 billion European road freight market, a 2025 forecast from Transport Intelligence. The firm's European Road Freight Transport 2026 report puts the 2025 figure at €440.4 billion and projects 1.6% growth this year.

Why investors signed

Piton Capital investor Michael Macklin pointed to the team's grasp of the problem. "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 said.

Consul was previously senior vice president of product at sennder, the Berlin digital freight forwarder valued at more than $1 billion in 2021. He helped build sennder's product organization as it grew from 200 to more than 1,000 employees.

Thomas Muscher, managing director at WaVe-X, said AI "is moving from pilot projects into the core processes of freight forwarding," and that the finance back office is one of the areas "where the impact is most immediate."

Conlio plans to use the money to build out its logistics technology team and expand across Europe. "Our long-term ambition is to change how money moves across supply chains, and verified freight documents are where this begins," Consul said.