AI, Scale and Regional Muscle: The New Battlefield for Digital Freight Platforms
Global digital freight marketplaces continue evolving - and 2025 is seeing notable momentum not just in traditional strongholds like North America and Europe, but increasingly across the Middle East.
While incumbents in the US and Europe refine their offerings, Middle East-based platforms are emerging as serious regional players. The global market for digital freight matching platforms is estimated at around US$41.5 billion in 2025, and is forecast to more than double by 2030.
Here’s a snapshot of the state of play among three global frontrunners - and a rising Middle East contender.
Freightos, Uber Freight, and sennder the Global Benchmarks
Freightos continues to dominate international air and ocean freight with its global, vendor-neutral freight-booking and payment platform. Freightos has expanded beyond spot bookings into full procurement workflows - offering long-term tenders, quarterly mini-bids, and spot buying across air, sea and ground freight - positioning itself as a full freight procurement backbone for importers/exporters.
Digital Logistics: The Game-Changing Industry Equaliser
Uber Freight leads in North American trucking. In 2025, it’s doubling down on AI and platform integration: the company has reportedly launched a “scaled AI logistics network,” using logistics-specific large-language models and automation for procurement, execution, payment and analytics. This hints at a shift from simple load matching to full supply-chain orchestration.
sennder, a European road-freight marketplace, is consolidating its position via regional acquisitions and deeper carrier networks. By combining digital marketplace capabilities with increasingly dense carrier coverage, sennder offers customers a reliable pan-European FTL (full-truckload) marketplace that balances transparency, coverage, and service.
These three platforms show how leading digital freight marketplaces are evolving from pure matchmaking to become integrated, tech-enabled freight procurement and management systems. The emphasis is on transparency, automation, multi-modal connectivity, and recurring software-like workflows rather than one-off spot deals.
Middle East's TruKKer Enters the Spotlight
Beyond the traditional strongholds, the Middle East is emerging as a fertile ground for digital freight innovation - and one platform in particular deserves attention: TruKKer.
Founded in 2016 TruKKer operates a digital road-freight marketplace across MENA and Central Asia, connecting a network of transporters with businesses needing trucking services.
In mid-2025, the company secured a US$15 million private credit investment from a Middle East fund. The funding is explicitly earmarked for expanding its digital freight and logistics platform - a signal that investors see strong growth potential in regional freight-matching solutions.
TruKKer’s platform now boasts tens of thousands of transporters across multiple countries, and aims to optimize dispatching, scheduling, and capacity utilization at scale. Additionally, TruKKer is working on decarbonization efforts - including electric-truck pilots - in collaboration with regional stakeholders.
This suggests that Middle East freight platforms are not just copying Western models, but adapting them to regional needs - offering flexibility across borders, large fleet access in a fragmented trucking environment, and even sustainability-oriented services.
Implications for Global Logistics and Supply-Chain Trends
The rise of platforms like TruKKer in the Middle East shows that digital freight matching is no longer confined to North America, Europe, or Asia-Pacific. As freight flows diversify and global supply-chains reorient, having strong regional players becomes increasingly important.
From Spot Market to Stable Network Flows
Global leaders like Freightos, Uber Freight and sennder are turning into full freight-management stacks. Meanwhile, regional platforms like TruKKer show that digital freight marketplaces can thrive even in fragmented trucking markets by focusing on density and flexibility.
Tech + Sustainability = Differentiator
Adoption of AI, integrated booking/tendering workflows, real-time tracking, and even electric-truck pilots point to a future where freight platforms are not just digital, but also optimized against carbon, cost, and operational risk.
A Globally Fragmented but Interconnected Future
As we end 2025, the digital-freight marketplace sector is entering a more mature phase. The narrative is shifting from aggressive growth to selective scale - combining technology, regional depth, and logistics know-how.
While heavyweights like Freightos, Uber Freight, and sennder continue to set the tone globally, regional players such as TruKKer in the Middle East are proving that their combination of agility, local market knowledge, and investment backing can carve out relevant positions.
Over the next 3 to 5 years, expect the global freight ecosystem to look less like a handful of dominant global platforms and more like a network of regional and modal specialists, interconnected through APIs, partnerships, and cross-region supply chains that help businesses everywhere move goods faster, more efficiently, and more predictably.
Read More: Digital Trucking - Top Five Technologies Driving Innovation
