PRE-SEED / SEED INVESTOR DECK
Bench Energy
FreightTender turns brokered freight RFQs into sealed offers, comparable awards, and audit-ready records before fixture.
Raising
$500K
Runway
18-month validation runway
Pavel Veselov · support@bench.energy · May 2026
www.bench.energy
Unfair insight
Freight awards are moving from relationship memory to evidence systems
- CTRM/TMS systems manage contracts and voyages; the messy RFQ decision often still happens in email.
- CFOs, banks, and compliance teams increasingly need a reasoned award record, not just a fixture result.
- Brokered RFQs leak value before the contract exists: poor comparability, slow award timing, weak evidence.
Why this is fundable
A small, painful workflow sits between trading desks and enterprise systems. If FreightTender owns this workflow, it becomes the audit + comparison layer attached to every freight award.
Problem
Email RFQs create decisions nobody can defend later
Comparable offers
Rates, laycan, vessel age, demurrage terms, and exceptions arrive in different formats.
Timing risk
Award delays happen before fixture; demurrage exposure starts as an operational decision problem.
Award evidence
Finance and compliance ask why freight was awarded; email gives fragments, not a record.
Benchmark gap
The desk often cannot see whether the best quote is good, late, or just the least bad.
Current alternative: Inbox + spreadsheet + memory. It works until the decision is questioned.
Solution
A pre-fixture RFQ workspace before the system of record
1
Invite
Closed broker panel
2
Collect
Sealed structured offers
3
Compare
Rate + terms + benchmark context
4
Award
Exportable rationale and audit record
Not a voyage management system; a control layer that feeds cleaner decisions into Veson, ION, SAP, Aspect, or spreadsheets.
Customer
Narrow beachhead
- Buyer
- Head of Freight, Freight Manager, CFO, COO, Compliance
- Company
- Commodity / chemical trading desk, 20–100 employees
- Workflow
- 80–150 brokered RFQs per year; still run through email
- Hubs
- Geneva, Dubai, Singapore first; expand by cargo vertical
Why they pay
- • Award defensibility for finance and compliance
- • Faster comparison without changing brokers
- • Better rate discussion with benchmark context
- • Lower-friction than full TMS replacement
Why now
Three shifts
- 1
Procurement digitization
Global procurement software is a ~$10B 2026 market growing ~10% CAGR, but generic suites do not understand freight awards.
- 2
Audit pressure
Commodity hubs increasingly expect traceability, sanctions discipline, and arm's-length decision evidence.
- 3
Distribution shift
Niche expert content, Telegram, and search can identify small desks before enterprise vendors engage them.
Market
Bottom-up math
Category context: Procurement software: ~$9.9B–$10.9B in 2026, projected to roughly double by 2033–2034.
Beachhead SAM: Assumption: 200 target firms in Geneva/Dubai/Singapore × $30K–$70K ACV = $6M–$14M ARR.
Expansion TAM: Assumption: 800 global commodity desks × $30K–$70K ACV = $24M–$56M vertical ARR before adjacent workflows.
Alternatives
Competitive landscape
| Alternative | Good at | Gap |
|---|---|---|
| Email + spreadsheet | Flexible and universal | No structured comparison or durable award rationale |
| Veson / IMOS | Voyage lifecycle and contract execution | Heavyweight for smaller desks; not built around broker RFQ audit |
| ION Softmar / CTRM | Chartering, operations, risk and ERP integration | Enterprise system, not a quick RFQ-control wedge |
| Seaber / planning AI | Scheduling and optimization | Different buyer problem; less focus on sealed broker offers |
| FreightTender | Pre-fixture RFQ control | Narrow wedge, integrates downstream |
Business model
Business model
Pilot
$5K–$15K
Scoped RFQ workflow, recent tenders, one desk
Starter
$30K/yr
Small desk, limited tender volume, 3 seats
Professional
$70K/yr
Higher volume, API, 10 seats, priority support
Enterprise
Custom
Multi-entity, SSO, on-prem / data retention needs
Target to validate: 70%+ gross margin, CAC payback <18 months, LTV:CAC >3x after first repeatable channel.
GTM
Go-to-market motion
- 1. Authority engine — Bench news, freight guides, SEO pages, Telegram posts: coal + trading + freight bridge-node topics.
- 2. Named-account outbound — Heads of Freight, CFOs, COOs in Geneva/Dubai/Singapore. CTA: 10-minute RFQ leakage audit.
- 3. Design partners — 3–5 desks validate workflow, willingness-to-pay, sales objections, and integration needs.
- 4. Partner leverage — Guest posts and expert contributions in freight/commodity publications; broker and advisory referrals.
Validation
What is true today
Built
- Working website, demo flow, pricing page, analytics, product positioning, and content engine are live.
Early signals
- Public site, demo flow, pricing, and weekly news digest live — enterprise GTM in progress.
Next proof
- Design partner conversations; paid pilot or LOI; demo CTA → qualified call conversion.
Founder-market fit + live GTM engine — enterprise pilots are the next validation milestone.
Assumptions under test
The raise buys proof
| Assumption | Test | Signal |
|---|---|---|
| Willingness to pay | $30K–$70K ACV for RFQ control | Paid pilot / LOI |
| Sales motion | Founder can reach qualified freight/CFO buyers | 10–20 meetings / quarter |
| Pain intensity | Audit + leakage pain beats inertia of email | Pilot conversion and usage |
| Integration depth | Pre-fixture wedge can stay lightweight | Few required integrations in first pilots |
| Retention path | Award record becomes recurring system of evidence | Repeat tenders + expansion seats |
Team
Founder-market fit
Pavel Veselov
20 years IT; 3 years commodity trading. Former Head of IT, international commodities. Managed CTRM (Aspect), SAP TRM, Oracle. 18-person team, $4M budget, 6 countries. SAP S/4HANA architect at BearingPoint.
Key hiring gap
Commercial co-founder / sales partner with 10+ years in commodity trading or freight, network in Geneva/Dubai/Singapore, and ability to close CFOs and Heads of Freight.
Use of funds
$500K allocation
| Sales & GTM | $180K | Sales partner, targeted events, outbound, guest-post distribution |
| Product | $120K | Broker portal, API hooks, RFQ benchmark workflow |
| Operations | $120K | Founder runway, customer success, onboarding |
| Infrastructure | $50K | Cloud, monitoring, tooling, contractors |
| Legal & buffer | $30K | Contracts, privacy, contingency |
18-month milestones
- • 3–5 design partners
- • 1–3 paid pilots / LOIs
- • 5–7 paying customers target
- • $150K–$250K ARR signal
- • Repeatable sales objections map
Vision
The audit layer for pre-fixture freight decisions
If FreightTender wins the RFQ workflow, every brokered freight award can carry structured evidence: who was invited, what was offered, why it was awarded, and how the quote compared to market context.
Seed thesis: Start with RFQ control, expand into benchmark intelligence, compliance records, and post-award integrations.
Generated from public dossier on truve.online · support@bench.energy