Borderlands is a weekly update on what’s going on in the realm of cross-border trucking and trade between the United States and Mexico. This week’s schedule: KlearNow’s goal is to use AI to tackle cross-border customs difficulties. Link EV Electric Vehicles will establish a $265 million factory in Mexico; Loup Logistics will buy a transload facility in Phoenix; and a new cold storage facility will be built in San Antonio.
KlearNow’s goal is to use AI to solve cross-border customs issues.
Using artificial intelligence, KlearNow seeks to accelerate and simplify cross-border customs clearance compliance.
The Santa Clara, California-based logistics-as-a-service (LaaS) provider employs artificial intelligence (AI) to digitize crucial documents required for container movement in order to automate workflows and decrease manual errors.
“We began KlearNow with the premise that technology needed to be used to automate and simplify areas of supply chains that, frankly, had been overlooked,” said Sam Tyagi, founder and CEO of KlearNow.
KlearNow, formed in 2018, just received $50 million in series B fundraising sponsored by Kayne Partners Fund. In January 2020, KlearNow raised $16 million in series A fundraising.
At each border crossing, all international shipments must clear customs with federal agencies, accompanied by documentation such as invoices, packing lists, bills of lading, and more. Previously, these documents were frequently handled by customs brokerage firms by manual entry.
Shippers, according to Tyagi, employ corporate supply chain management software to automate customs operations inside specific ecosystems.
“The moment you leave that ecosystem, whether it’s your supply chain partner overseas or your transportation partners, that relationship is suddenly destroyed,” Tyagi explained. “The communication that occurs within your enterprise’s partners is a PDF, PNG, Excel, Microsoft Word, you name it, it’s shared on emails, and it’s not structured.”
KlearNow uses artificial intelligence to automate the process of manually entering compliance documentation required for cross-border shipments.
“Our system digitizes those documents, extracts all the important information, and we fill out the entire form, send it to a customs broker before it gets on the platform, and the documents have been vetted and checked to ensure they’re accurate and complete,” Tyagi explained. “Now we can complete a two-hour work for a broker in less than five minutes, and the broker can obtain higher compliance, which is what they’re paid for.”
KlearNow has grown into Canada since 2020 and will begin its United Kingdom service in January 2021 to enable businesses in the United Kingdom and the European Union to operate in the post-Brexit landscape.
KlearNow has also just launched a drayage marketplace to its LaaS platform to assist drayage enterprises experiencing planning and scheduling issues, as well as importers seeking increased visibility.
Tyagi stated that the series B money will be used to expand into other countries as well as to develop marketing and branding strategies to showcase KlearNow’s LaaS capabilities. Over the following two years, the company intends to grow into ten nations.
“I believe the logistics-as-a-service market needs to become more popular, and we are leading the way,” Tyagi added. “The financing will be utilized for two sorts of expansion: growth in countries where we currently have a presence, such as the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom, and growth in new geographies.”
Tyagi stated that it is already doing a lot of business from Mexico to the United States, which could be one of the countries into which it extends in the near future.
“Mexico is on the road map for cross-border,” Tyagi remarked. “In fact, we may speed up our expansion into Mexico.” One of our customers is a significant importer into Mexico, from which they distribute.”
Link EV Electric Vehicles will construct a $265 million facility in Mexico.
Link EV Electric Vehicles recently announced plans to develop an assembly plant in Modelo, Mexico.
The $265 million facilities will produce up to 1,200 electric vehicles (EV) per year, including passenger buses and minibusses, as well as cargo and passenger vans, for domestic and global markets.
The business, which will employ 400 people directly, is expected to begin production by the end of 2022.
Modelo is based in the Mexican state of Puebla, which also houses Volkswagen and Audi production factories.
Link EV Electric Vehicles is a subsidiary of Citizens Resources, a Boston-based energy corporation.
Loup Logistics has purchased a transload facility in Phoenix.
Loup Logistics Co., a Union Pacific (NYSE: UNP) affiliate, has purchased the Precision Components (PCI Reload) transload plant in Phoenix.
PCI Reload is a 100-acre transload facility with 125,000 square feet of covered storage and 3 miles of Union Pacific rail capacity. Every year, the facility processes around 8,000 train cars and 38,000 vehicles.
According to Hal Owens, president of PCI Reload, the facility provides companies with transportation solutions into and out of the Phoenix region.
“PCI Reload contributed to Arizona’s economic growth by providing transloading, inventory management, and final-destination shipping for a wide range of sectors,” Owens said in a statement.
The acquisition’s terms were not disclosed.
San Antonio will get a 300,000-square-foot cold storage facility.
Cold Creek Solutions (CCS), based in Fort Worth, Texas, has begun construction on a 305,000-square-foot cold storage warehouse near San Antonio.
The cold storage facility will include about 294,500 square feet of temperature-controlled area and will be able to store 45,000 pallets of frozen or refrigerated supplies. Other features include 48 dock spots, two drive-in ramps, and truck clearance heights of 48 feet.
The facility in San Antonio is expected to be finished by the end of 2022.
CCS is also building a 374,560-square-foot cold storage facility in Denton, Texas, near Dallas, which is slated to open in August.
