African Rainbow Capital Investments subsidiary, GemCap has acquired online transport management business Linebooker from the Oceana Group. The investment will provide a springboard to expand and grow the existing business and its digital solutions within the freight and logistics sector.   

Linebooker, was established in February 2017 as South Africa’s first commercial, online transport bidding platform, and to date has completed more than 3 400 loads. The company provides customers with instant access to multiple pre-approved transport companies, ensuring the best price of the day, and alleviating vehicle shortages over periods of high demand.

Over 100 reputable commercial transport companies have joined the Linebooker platform. Collectively, these transport companies have a truck compliment of over 5 000 vehicles that essentially makes up a ‘virtual fleet’ that can meet customers’ transport demands within an hour of posting a load request.

The transport industry is currently fragmented and not guided by pricing standards. This is further exacerbated by limited to no transparency between customers and transport companies alike. The opportunity presented by Linebooker is a real-time logistics application that efficiently and transparently matches trucks to loads.

Commenting on the transaction, Chief Operating Officer of Linebooker, Nick Hoffman said, “The investment by GemCap is significant in that it gives us the scope and capital to expand our service offering and logistical reach to benefit customers and transporters beyond the borders of South Africa.”

“Much of our success can be attributed to the transparent nature of our online platform and operating model – coupled to the fact that we have been able to show our customers savings of between 12% to 21% on their existing transport costs,” added Hoffman.