DHL has announced the divestment of Greenplan, a DHL-owned route planning solution provider, to the current management team through a management buyout.
Dr Clemens Beckmann, CEO of Greenplan, led the acquisition together with Florian Merget, former head of strategy and business development at Greenplan and now co-owner and managing director with a 25% share.
Together, they will continue to manage and develop Greenplan’s business of cloud-based, dynamic route optimisation for national and international logistics companies, while DHL will remain a customer.
With the transaction DHL said it is following its commitment to focus on its core business of transportation and logistics services; as it does not consider the commercial scale-up of software start-ups to be a core activity.
“Smart route planning, based on a powerful algorithm, helps forwarders and customers with large fleets to optimise the utilisation of their vehicles, to improve route planning, and ultimately reduce CO2 emissions by driving fewer kilometres,” said Katja Busch, chief commercial officer at DHL.
“The commitment by Dr Clemens Beckmann and Florian Merget to invest in and further develop the Greenplan solution, marks an important step in the successful growth story of Greenplan. With the management buyout the team will now accelerate the growth of that unique route planning solution provider.”
Greenplan started as a cooperation between DHL and the Mathematical Institute of the University of Bonn in 2016, initially as a research project to optimise transportation and route planning for DHL.
Since then, it has expanded its customer base, solutions and won blue-chip external clients for its algorithm. Going forward Greenplan’s owners said they plan to grow the business into new markets.
