German start-up Colonia Technologies raises €6 million for its commercial vehicle sharing platform

German logistics start-up Colonia Technologies has developed a sharing platform for commercial vehicles. The B2B sharing model, founded in 2021 by Jakob Sadoun and Kaspar Filipp, was created to give logistics providers a marketplace to share their vehicles and manage their fleets more effectively. It has also just launched a new feature whereby it offers additional payment security via an external payments partner. 

Colonia Technologies has raised a Seed round of €6 million. The round was led by Octopus Ventures and includes vent.io, Plug and Play, MobilityFund, Atlantic Labs, Hoyer, and existing investor Atlantic Labs. It also includes angel investment, including the founders of Flixbus, Grover and Seven Senders

“Logistics companies often lose business due to the lack of access to appropriate vehicles, while simultaneously struggling to effectively utilise their own fleets. We see that demand in the commercial vehicle sharing segment has already increased significantly in the first half of the year and expect the trend to continue,” says co-founder Kaspar Filipp.

“Access to trucks and trailers is a critical bottleneck in international logistics, while the unpredictability of demand creates huge challenges for the small businesses that operate commercial logistics fleets. Colonia’s not only solving the problem of dormant trucks and trailers but enabling fleet operators to win business across Europe. It’s creating a step change in European logistics,” says Nick Sando, Principal, Octopus Ventures.