From blind spot to industry standard: over 5 million euros in capital for Logistikbude

The Dortmund-based tech company impresses leading venture capitalists with its new system standard for global supply chains

• Capnamic leads Series A financing round, existing investors increase commitment.
• Dr. Philipp Hüning, Michael Koscharnyj, Patrik Elfert and Jan Möller founded the Logistikbude 2021 based on their many years of experience at the Fraunhofer Institute.
• Their software solution transforms the management of one of the largest but least digitized cost blocks in logistics: pallets, containers, etc.

Dortmund, March 18, 2026 — By establishing a completely new software category in the system landscape of manufacturing, logistics and retail companies, Logistikbude impresses a well-known consortium of investors and receives over 5 million euros in a Series A financing round. The Dortmund-based tech company has developed a software solution that allows companies to simply digitally control load carriers such as pallets, containers or racks — and thus solved a challenge that almost every company along the supply chain is dealing with. With the fresh capital, Logistikbude is massively accelerating the automation of load carrier processes and continues to push ahead with its internationalization. The lead investor is Capnamic, one of the leading venture capital investors in Europe. Moguntia Capital, a renowned supply chain investor with a private equity and US footprint, is also participating. Their existing investors — the Fraunhofer Technology Transfer Fund (FTTF), Rethink Ventures, the Venture Capital Fund (VC) XPRESS Ventures financed by the Fiege family, and Golzers — are also increasing their commitment and thus also reaffirming their trust.

“Logistikbude has the potential to transform the system landscape of global supply chains and become a category leader in the B2B vertical software-as-a-service sector,” says Jörg Binnenbrücker, Managing Partner and Co-Founder of Capnamic. Dr. Nils Eiteneyer, partner at Capnamic, adds: “The software solution forms a new category that addresses a significant and at the same time less digitized cost driver in the process chains of retail, industry and logistics. We are impressed by the team's deep domain expertise.” The Dortmund-based tech company pursues the mission of revolutionizing the global management of load carriers, such as euro pallets, mesh boxes or racks.

10 billion charge carriers — a system-critical blind spot

They form the backbone of global supply chains: There are around 10 billion load carriers in circulation worldwide; there are an estimated 150 billion transfers between companies every year. At the same time, pallets, containers or racks are by no means cheap mass-produced goods — they represent fixed capital and cause considerable costs in the event of loss, damage or inefficient use. Each individual exchange generates bookings, balance reconciliation processes and documentation, often manually or fragmented across emails, Excel lists and isolated systems. These administrative expenses — in addition to tied up capital — drive up total costs. Although load carriers are system-critical and cost-relevant for industry, trade and logistics, they are still only treated as an ancillary process in existing IT systems.

LCMS: From secondary topic to own software category

“This is exactly where we come in,” says Dr. Philipp Hüning, co-founder and CEO of Logistikbude. “Our goal is to completely automate load carrier management and thus relieve companies of this issue.” To this end, the tech company is defining a completely new software category: Logistikbude is the first load carrier management system (LCMS). “Just as a warehouse management system (WMS) helps companies control their warehouse processes and a transport management system (TMS) organizes their transport processes, an LCMS manages all pallets, racks and mesh boxes,” explains Hüning.

To do this, the platform bundles information from existing IT systems such as WMS, TMS and enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems. At the same time, it closes existing data gaps by integrating additional information, for example via its own app, Internet of Things (IoT) sensors or the AI-based processing of documents. This data forms the basis for the complete automation of all processes involving load carriers. The LCMS's core technology for this is artificial intelligence (AI): It makes it possible to automatically read, process and directly post any PDFs and Excel documents — a process that has hitherto been highly manual and prone to errors. In addition, the AI checks external documents and compares them with its own bookings.

“As a result, we automate work processes that have cost many employees hundreds of hours of work each year,” says Hüning.

Spin-off with a clear mission

“When we worked together at the Fraunhofer Institute for Material Flow and Logistics (IML), we quickly realized how complex and inefficient the management of load carriers is still organized in many companies,” says Michael Koscharnyj, Co-Founder and COO of Logistikbude. “At the same time, existing solutions were often unnecessarily complicated and left many new technological opportunities unused.” The founding team never let go of this observation: In 2021, Koscharnyj founded the company together with Dr. Philipp Hüning, Patrik Elfert and Jan Möller. Since the spin-off from Fraunhofer IML, the company has developed from a tech start-up into a provider that is establishing load carrier management as an independent software category on the market.

Internationalization and standardization as the next phase of growth

As early as 2023, the company was able to impress as part of seed financing and received over 2 million euros from various VC and Angel Clubs. With this capital, the team further developed the solution, grew from 4 to 25 employees and now accounts for more than 50 million load carriers per month for its well-known customers such as the Nagel-Group and DACHSER. The Series A financing thus builds on a phase of validated growth and now marks the next milestone in the growth story of Logistikbude. “With the fresh capital, we are scaling our LCMS internationally and consistently expanding our leading position in this emerging software category. We are thus establishing LCMS as an integral part of the B2B system landscape beyond the DACH region,” explains Koscharnyj.

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More information about Logistikbude:

Photo line Press photo Logistikbude — Team: The Logistikbude team: With over five million euros from a Series A financing round, the company is driving forward the international scaling of its software for automated load carrier management. (Photo: Sina Sadegh Nadi/Logistikbude)

Photo line Press photo Logistikbude — Founder: (from left to right) Michael Koscharnyj, Patrik Elfert, Dr. Philipp Hüning and Jan Möller founded the company in 2021 as a spin-off from the Fraunhofer Institute for Material Flow and Logistics (IML). (Photo: Sina Sadegh Nadi/Logistikbude)

About Logistikbude:

More than ten billion load carriers worldwide — from pallets to containers to special racks — form the backbone of global supply chains. But while ERP, WMS, and TMS systems provide answers to other supply chain questions, managing loading equipment often remains a blind spot.

As a result, 150 billion changes of ownership per year are still booked manually and coordinated monthly through emails.

The tech company Logistikbude based in the Ruhr region is closing this gap as a pioneer in a new software category: the Load Carrier Management System (LCMS). As an intelligent data layer, the LCMS covers existing IT infrastructures like glasses and makes scattered data fragments transparent and usable.

Developed by Fraunhofer IML, the Logistikbude software solution automates manual bookings, lengthy coordination processes and completely frees production, logistics and trading companies from the day-to-day operations of load carrier management.

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Contact for editors:

Felix Lütjann
Head of Marketing

Logistikbude GmbH
Emil-Figge-Strasse 80
44227 Dortmund

presse@logistikbude.com

www.logistikbude.com

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