FREIGHT EXPECTATIONS

FLEXPORT CEO RYAN PETERSEN BECAME THE SELF-APPOINTED FACE OF SUPPLY-CHAIN SOLUTIONS IN 2021 BY THINKING OUTSIDE THE CONTAINER. NOW HIS $8 BILLION STARTUP NEEDS TO PROVE IT’S MORE THAN JUST SILICON VALLEY HYPE.

- ALEX KONRAD

THE FERRY TO SAN FRANCISCO EXITS OAKLAND'S HARBOR, FLEXPORT'S FOUNDER AND CEO, RYAN PETERSEN, TURNS TO WATCH A TOWERING 370-FOOT CRANE HOOK SHIPPING CONTAINERS, ONE BY ONE, ONTO THE DECK OF A CARGO SHIP.

Petersen admires the neat rows of rectangles colored blue, rust red and an occasional teal, stacked on the post-Panamax-class ship bound for Yokohama, Japan.

“I wish I could look inside with a HoloLens to see which containers are Flexport’s,” he says, imagining that Microsoft’s augmented-reality glasses had an X-ray feature. “Any container ship on the West Coast, I guarantee we are on there.” It sounds like bravado, but for Petersen, 41, it’s simple math. Flexport owns no trains, planes, or ships of its own. But as one of the fastest-growing players in a space called digital freight forwarding, Petersen’s eight-year-old company is already the world’s seventh-biggest buyer of cargo room on such trans-Pacific routes. Pretty much any Asia-bound ship will have at least a container or two filled with California almonds or auto parts put there by Flexport’s software.