DENMARK – PORTUGAL – It appears that Maersk Growth, the Corporate Venture arm of A.P. Moller Maersk, is doing exactly what it was set up for, spreading the giant shipping group's wealth into the various specialised corners of the logistics industry.
In its third acquisition this year the group has purchased the Portuguese cloud-based logistics start-up HUUB, which deals in technology solutions for B2C warehousing for the fashion industry. Maersk says, as a disruptive force in the eCommerce space, the acquisition strengthens Maersk´s technology capabilities, bringing the best attributes of a modern entrepreneurial agile workplace. Vincent Clerc, Executive Vice President and CEO of Ocean & Logistics, A.P. Moller Maersk, commented:
“HUUB is a great fit for Maersk, a curious team with inspiring founders. With HUUB we are acquiring world class capabilities and talent that will allow us to greatly accelerate the development of our omni-channel offering. This will make it much easier for our customers to focus on their core business of producing and selling goods and swiftly bringing them to the end-consumers.”
Once HUUB´s technology is embedded into Maersk’s existing solutions, the pair say customers will get fully integrated Maersk ecommerce logistics products with modern highly user-friendly customer and partner interfaces. Furthermore, Maersk customers will have a single source of stock visibility. Tiago Paiva, HUUB CEO observed:
“Since day one, HUUB has had two main purposes: disruption and scale. Disruption to have the capacity, and courage, to say that a multi-billion dollar industry needs a digital revolution and to envision and create a revolutionary supply chain platform and ecosystem. In addition, there is the scale that allows disruption to occur, feeding it with the volumes that can make a difference.
”For HUUB, this joint path that now starts with Maersk represents both. Firstly, the validation of our disruptive vision and product. And secondly, Maersk is the scale enabler that will allow our platform to serve amazing customers and lead the eCommerce logistics market,”
Maersk Growth, the corporate venture arm of A.P. Moller Maersk, first engaged with HUUB in May 2019 as they believe collaboration with start-ups is an important lever for innovation. With this acquisition by Maersk, Maersk Growth as well as the rest of the investors are exiting the company.
To strengthen its integrated logistics offering, Maersk set out two and a half years ago on an M&A journey, acquiring Vandegrift, a custom broker; Performance Team, a warehousing and distribution specialist and, KGH a Customs Services. In August 2021, Maersk expanded its eCommerce footprint by announcing the acquisition of Visible SCM and its intention to acquire Europe B2C.
Photo: (L to R) Head of Technology at HUUB, Tiago Craveiro, the Head of Operations, Pedro Santos, and the CEO, Tiago Paiva.
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