INTTRA Acquires Avantida

PARSIPPANY, N.J. and ANTWERP, Belgium, March 14, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- INTTRA, the world's ocean shipping electronic marketplace, today announced that it has acquired Avantida, the European market leader in empty container management for ocean carriers. Avantida is headquartered in Belgium and currently conducts business in seven European countries.

Enhanced coordination of land and ocean container movements generates efficiencies and reduces costs, and INTTRA's entry into landside container logistics will provide additional value for existing and new customers. Avantida's core business – digitized, automated container reuse and repositioning – addresses a major challenge for ocean carriers, transport companies, terminals, depots, and other stakeholders. Industry experts estimate that empty container positioning costs the ocean shipping industry up to $20 billion a year, approximately 40 percent of handling costs.

"Avantida, an industry leader in digitized container logistics, has products and customer bases that are highly complementary to those of INTTRA. Acquiring Avantida advances our strategy of extending our reach into the intermodal value chain, enabling INTTRA to better serve our customers. With cutting-edge, cloud-based technology and a unique business model, Avantida enhances efficiency and delivers substantial value to carriers, shippers, and other landside transport companies," said INTTRA's CEO, John Fay. "I am very pleased to welcome Avantida's team to the INTTRA family and I am confident that they will continue to execute on their mission supplemented by INTTRA's resources."

"We are excited to join forces with INTTRA," said Luc De Clerck, Avantida's CEO. "Together we can leverage technology innovation to digitize and transform a multi-billion dollar market that is central to global trade. INTTRA's global network will enable us to accelerate product adoption in Europe and around the world. Our combined offering will further benefit numerous stakeholders within and beyond ocean shipping and container logistics, including reducing CO2 emissions and congestion at ports and surrounding communities."

Avantida will operate as an INTTRA-owned company and customers should continue to use the same sales and service contacts.

Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

About INTTRA

INTTRA is the largest neutral electronic transaction software platform and information provider at the center of the ocean shipping industry. INTTRA's innovative products, combined with the scale of our network, empower our customers to trade with multiple parties and leverage ocean industry information to improve their business. Connecting over 225,000 shipping professionals with more than 50 leading carriers and 110 software alliance partners, INTTRA streamlines the ocean trade process. Over 700,000 container orders are initiated on the INTTRA platform each week, representing approximately 25 percent of global ocean container trade.

About Avantida

Avantida is a European technology provider that assists in optimizing the handling of empty containers. The company's reuse and repositioning applications provide actionable information that can minimize miles driven, increase container velocity, lower costs for carriers and transport companies, enable exporters to ship more efficiently, and reduce CO2 emissions as well as congestion at depots, ports and surrounding communities. Avantida's platform currently serves Belgium, The Netherlands, Germany, France, Italy, Portugal and Spain.

SOURCE INTTRA