WiseTech Global today announced the acquisition of LSI Sigma Software (‘DataFreight’), a leading provider of customs, freight forwarding and warehouse management software solutions in the United Kingdom.

Headquartered in Southampton, DataFreight provides integrated logistics solutions, including HMRC customs software, specialist consultancy for UK customs compliance and freight forwarding solutions for all modes of transport, along with warehousing capabilities for managing bonded and un-bonded warehouses in the UK. Their scalable solutions are used by large and small organisations including customers such as TNT International, Allport Cargo Services, Charles Kendall Freight, COSCO Shipping, DACHSER, Maersk Lines, and many other logistics providers and organisations.

(L to R) Photo of DataFreight’s’ Ian Brown, Sharon Brown and WiseTech’s Vlad Bilanovsky
(L to R) Photo of DataFreight’s’ Ian Brown, Sharon Brown and WiseTech’s Vlad Bilanovsky
WiseTech Global Founder and CEO, Richard White, said “Regardless of whether the outcome is a hard or soft border for Brexit, WiseTech is uniquely placed to facilitate trade and deliver cross-border compliance for logistics providers in the UK and Europe. With DataFreight, we will continue to expand our lead in cross-border capability geographically, further strengthening our local market capacity to move swiftly ahead of UK and EU regulatory evolution. Along with DataFreight’s long-term UK cross-border compliance and logistics expertise, and existing involvement on HMRC move from CHIEF to the new CDS platform, we see their UK customs capability as valuable while the outcomes of Brexit are determined. In any event, with our powerful global development capacity, we are well positioned to address the changes to come.”

“The DataFreight team will fit well within the WiseTech group and, over time, enhance the benefits for UK logistics providers of our comprehensive EU coverage with our leading customs-compliance solutions in Belgium, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Turkey and Spain and our extensive capabilities with the UK’s other major trading partner countries, China and the US.”

DataFreight’s Co-Founder and Managing Director, Ian Brown, said “Becoming part of a leading global group like WiseTech will help us fast-track our product innovation and build out solutions that will make cross-border compliance, forwarding and warehousing management in UK, and internationally, safer, quicker and more efficient for our customers. Together, we are committed to our customers and their business requirements, as we work with WiseTech Global to enhance and scale up our product capabilities.”

Remaining under the leadership of Ian Brown, DataFreight’s operations will be integrated within the WiseTech Global group and DataFreight will continue to deliver its customs management solutions directly to its own customers, along with WiseTech’s integrated global logistics platform, CargoWise One.

CargoWise One enables logistics service providers to execute highly complex transactions in areas such as freight forwarding, customs clearance, warehousing, shipping, tracking, land transport, ecommerce, and cross-border compliance and to manage their operations on one database across multiple users, functions, countries, languages and currencies.

This transaction follows WiseTech’s other recent logistics solutions acquisitions in Argentina, Australasia, Belgium, Brazil, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, North America, Spain, Taiwan, Turkey and

Uruguay, and is in line with WiseTech Global’s clearly stated strategy of accelerating long-term organic growth through targeted, valuable acquisitions.