Sennder acquires Dutch forwarder Cars&Cargo

Rapidly expanding European digital road freight forwarder Sennder announced today that it has acquired Cars&Cargo, a Dutch-based freight forwarder operating across France and Benelux and said it was continuing to evaluate other strategic acquisitions to strengthen its offering across Europe.

Sennder said the two companies “have joined forces to bring 240 chartered vehicles onto Sennder’s digital platform, creating greater capacity that benefits from the transparency and efficiency advantages of Sennder’s operating system, sennOS”. 

It said its customers operating in France, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg “will benefit from a significant capacity expansion and premium service quality due to Cars&Cargo’s fully chartered fleet joining Sennder’s network. It said Cars&Cargo’s fleet “will be embedded in Sennder’s technology, gaining access to digital fleet management, route optimisation and seamless onboarding”.

Sennder said the acquisition “demonstrates Sennder’s targeting of partnerships and acquisitions that enhance its existing offering as the business seeks to deliver further value to both shippers and carriers”, stressing that the company “continues to evaluate strategic acquisitions to strengthen its offering across Europe”. 

Although the Cars&Cargo team will become part of Sennder, Cars&Cargo will continue to operate under its existing brand in the near-term, with the founder Bob Snijder continuing as managing director of Cars&Cargo. 

Sennder’s acquisition of Cars&Cargo follows several recent major purchases, including acquisitions of Uber Freight Europe and Everoad, a joint venture with Poste Italiane, and partnerships with Michelin and Zeitfracht. 

Sennder was founded in 2015 and aims to become a leading European freight forwarder by focusing on the digitalisation and automation of road logistics processes. It currently manages over 12,500 trucks across Europe with a team of 840 people.

Earlier this year, the European digital road freight forwarder revealed that it had raised $160 million from investors in its latest funding round, with some of the additional funding to be used “to drive expansion into new European markets with a focus on strategic partnerships” – such as its €100m JV with Poste Italiane.

David Nothacker, co-founder and CEO of Sennder, said: “Sennder has been on a remarkable growth journey, which has included several high-profile acquisitions. 2021 is all about expanding our existing offering to carriers and shippers alike – our acquisition of Cars&Cargo delivers on this objective.

“We look forward to working with the talented Cars&Cargo team to digitalise its existing fleet and provide a premium service to the Benelux, German and French markets.” 

New digital offering

Sennder said both businesses connect commercial shippers with small and medium-sized carriers, with Cars&Cargo operating a chartered fleet model with more than 240 trucks controlling 43,000 loads per year, “meaning shippers can access a premium service delivering capacity on-demand to fulfill various ad-hoc transportation requests”.

It said Cars&Cargo “will benefit from the advantages of being a digital road freight forwarder, including efficiency gains and greater visibility of the transportation process”. 

Bob Snijder, managing director and founder of Cars&Cargo, said: “I look forward to moving our trucks onto Sennder’s operating system, sennOS. We share Sennder’s vision, to make logistics fit for the future and we feel digitalizing our chartered fleet aligns our collective goal.

“With Sennder, we will give the industry greater access to capacity that’s digitally optimised to run as efficiently as possible – that’s an exciting proposition.”