Thursday, October 22, 2026
The news that moves freight
Companies & Markets Oct 22, 2026 · 7 min read

Freightos founder forces a December vote on the chairman

Freightos founder wants the chairman out, and the bookings data backs his strategy. Freightos founder Zvi Schreiber, who holds about 6% of the shares, will put a vote to remove Chairman Udo Lange to the December shareholder meeting, FreightWaves reported on 21 October. The shares are down about 78% in a year. We think Schreiber has the better argument but a weak hand. Platform revenue rose 19% in Q2. Software revenue fell 4%. Forwarders booking air cargo on WebCargo should expect more push on the marketplace, whoever wins. Our call: Lange keeps his seat in December. But we also expect the 23 November results to lead with platform growth.

Freightos founder bets his 6% stake that the marketplace, not the software, is the future

Zvi Schreiber founded Freightos in 2012 and ran it for 14 years. Now he wants its chairman gone. Schreiber owns roughly 6% of the company. He will ask shareholders at the December annual general meeting (AGM) to remove Chairman Udo Lange as a director, FreightWaves reported on 21 October 2026. The board has agreed to put his proposals to a vote. The meeting date is still to be confirmed.

The backdrop is a share price that has fallen about 78% over the past year. Over the same period the Nasdaq Composite rose about 16%, according to FreightWaves.

Our view is simple. On strategy, Schreiber has the better of the argument: the part of Freightos that is growing is the booking marketplace, not the software. But a 6% holder trying to unseat a chairman is a long shot. We think the board survives the vote, and the bigger effect of this fight will be on what management chooses to emphasise between now and the AGM.

What Schreiber is asking for

Schreiber has filed three resolutions, according to FreightWaves.

The first would remove Lange from the board.

The second would end staggered board terms. Right now, directors serve three-year terms, and only some come up for election each year. That makes it slow for shareholders to change the board. Schreiber wants every director elected every year. FreightWaves says this is a special resolution, and that it is “a change that would require an amendment to the company’s articles of association.” The articles are the company’s founding rulebook. Freightos is registered in the Cayman Islands.

Schreiber explained the point of yearly elections: “That way, the directors are more answerable to shareholders, and we get to decide every year.”

The third resolution is nonbinding, meaning the board does not have to follow it even if it passes. It recommends appointing a chairman with experience scaling growth-stage tech companies. Schreiber says Freightos refused to put this strategy recommendation to a vote. FreightWaves reports the company did not directly respond to that claim.

To back the campaign, Schreiber has launched GrowCRGO. FreightWaves describes it only as “an initiative focused on his campaign for changes at Freightos.” CRGO is Freightos’s Nasdaq ticker.

Freightos’s response, as reported by FreightWaves, was that the board and management will assess the proposals under the company’s governing documents and their fiduciary duties. Its statement added: “The Board and management remain fully focused on executing our operational strategy.”

How a founder ended up outside the tent

This did not start as a fight. On 17 December 2025, Freightos announced that Schreiber would step down as CEO from 31 January 2026 and stay on the board. In that filing he said: “It will be a privilege to continue actively supporting Freightos as a board member.” Lange, the chairman, said of him: “His vision and his belief in a connected, digital freight ecosystem have shaped Freightos at every step.”

That plan lasted about two months. STAT Times reported on 24 February 2026 that Schreiber would leave the board on 28 February. He wrote on LinkedIn that “as our perspectives on the direction for the company have diverged, I prefer to step off the board at this time.” The CFO, Pablo Pinillos, had taken over as interim CEO and now holds the CEO role.

Schreiber told FreightWaves he deliberately waited before going public. “To launch a public campaign against the board? that needs data,” he said. “So I wanted to give them at least six months to prove themselves.”

He also insisted: “It’s certainly not a personal thing, but the board has gone in the wrong direction and delivered very bad results for shareholders.”

The strategy fight, in numbers

Freightos has two businesses. Platform is the fees Freightos charges on bookings made through its marketplace, where forwarders buy freight capacity from carriers. Its air cargo booking platform is WebCargo by Freightos. Solutions is mainly subscription software and data sold to forwarders and shippers, plus related services.

Schreiber’s complaint is that the board chose to lead with Solutions. “To bet that company on solutions first, just when AI is really threatening it, I thought that was a very bad decision,” he told FreightWaves. His core argument: “AI can write software in minutes, but AI can’t go and negotiate with airlines around the world and build a network.”

The Q2 2026 results, released on 17 August, show why he thinks the data is on his side:

  • Total revenue was $7.7 million, up 3% from $7.4 million.
  • Platform revenue rose 19% to $2.9 million.
  • Solutions revenue fell 4% to $4.8 million. The release flagged lower-than-expected performance in SaaS, its subscription software.
  • Gross booking value (GBV), the total value of freight booked through the platform, rose 33% to a record $422 million.
  • Transactions rose 15% to 458,000.
  • Adjusted EBITDA, a measure of operating profit that strips out some costs, was a loss of $2.0 million, better than the $2.9 million loss a year earlier.
  • Cash and short-term deposits stood at $21.4 million at the end of June.

Preliminary Q3 figures, reported by Container News on 19 October, kept the trend going. Transactions were about 494,000, up 15% year on year and above the company’s own 481,000 to 490,000 forecast. GBV hit another record at $437 million, up 30%, well above the $390 million to $397 million guidance. Carriers actively selling on the platform rose to 79, from 75 in Q2.

But the board has a counter-argument, and it is also in the numbers. Solutions is still most of the business. FreightWaves reports Solutions revenue grew 27% in 2025 to $19.6 million, about 62% of total revenue. In Q2 2026 it was still $4.8 million of $7.7 million. On our own arithmetic, Platform revenue of $2.9 million on $422 million of bookings is a take of about 0.7%. A marketplace that keeps less than a cent of each dollar booked needs very large volumes to carry a listed company.

Management is also promising better results. Pinillos said in August: “We remain committed to our profitability targets by exiting the year at Adjusted EBITDA breakeven.” The company’s full-year 2026 guidance is revenue of $30.4 million to $31.0 million, up 3% to 5%, and an adjusted EBITDA loss of $6.4 million to $6.9 million.

So both sides can point to a chart. Schreiber points to the growth line. The board points to where the revenue is today.

What it means for forwarders

For most forwarders, the practical question is about WebCargo. Many book airline capacity through it, comparing rates and confirming space online instead of by email.

Nothing in this fight switches that off. The platform is the part of Freightos that both sides say is doing well. In the Q3 update, Freightos itself said most transaction growth came from customers who also use its software. Pinillos said: “Our third-quarter performance reflects continued momentum across the Freightos Platform.”

What changes is pressure. With a founder campaigning on “grow primarily the platform,” management has every reason to show marketplace growth before the AGM. In our view, forwarders should expect:

  • More airlines and carriers pushed onto the platform, and more sales effort to get forwarders booking online rather than offline.
  • Less patience for software products that are not selling. The Q2 release already flagged weak SaaS.
  • A louder pitch around bundling, where forwarders who use Freightos software are steered to book through the marketplace too.

There is also a risk worth watching. A company in a public governance fight, with $21.4 million of cash and still losing money, has less room for big bets. If the vote goes badly or the share price keeps falling, cost cuts could follow. Forwarders that rely on a specific Freightos tool should ask their account manager where it sits on the roadmap.

For the wider digital freight market, this is a test case. Schreiber is arguing that AI makes plain software easier to copy, while a network of carriers and buyers is hard to copy. If he is right, the value in freight tech shifts toward marketplaces with real liquidity. If the board is right, steady subscription revenue still wins. Other freight software firms will be watching the outcome.

Our call

We expect Udo Lange to keep his seat at the December AGM. A 6% holder needs a lot of other shareholders to back a chairman’s removal. Changing the articles to end staggered terms is a special resolution, which sets a higher bar than a normal vote. We think both resolutions fail.

But we expect Schreiber to win part of the argument anyway. Our second call: when Freightos publishes full Q3 results on 23 November, the release will lead with Platform growth, transactions and booking value, not Solutions. We also expect management to announce at least one new marketplace push, such as new carriers or new booking features, before the AGM.

If Lange does lose, the likely next step is a new chairman with a marketplace mandate. That would mean faster changes to WebCargo within the first half of 2027.

Sources