These series of guest posts are written by the teams attending the Tetuan Valley Startup School 2010 Fall edition. This post is from the geo2meet team, formed by Albert Morcillo and Nilo Morán.
In these days of economic crisis that we are living, every company knows that if they would survive, they need to sell their products or services to foreign countries. For this purpose, export companies can use www.icontainers.com.
Icontainers is the first online freight forwarder that lets companies do international transport bookings fast and with lower prices. It’s like a travel agency but instead of people moving goods.
In their web-site, you can calculate sea transport prices for LCL (Less Container Load) and full container load. You can book air services for LCL too. And all this to every port in the world.
Their services are generally aimed at SMEs and provide all transport services from its warehouse to the port or airport of destination, including the collection, customs clearance, international transport and insurance if applicable.
This start-up was founded in late July, 2007 (the website was not operational until the end of that year) as a result of a spinoff of a forwarding company and customs broker with more than 35 years experience, Metropolitana de aduanas y transportes SA. In April 2008, the business angels Octapris and Compass Private Equity invested in www.icontainers.com technology to reinforce and develop a plan for national growth. Today the company has over 150 active clients and performs an average of 100 shipments per month to various destinations. It closed in 2009 with over 750 thousand euros turnover ratios and now growth in the first half of 2010 is higher than 50%.
Currently, the company is undergoing expansion with the launch of the import version and a strategic plan that involves aggressive internationalization of the company, expanding it to US market.
