"Flexport is a digitally enabled freight forwarder that helps other businesses to transport and store goods across the globe."

"The business model of Flexport is based on various services around the shipment of goods. Their main source of income comes from the fees of transporting goods. Other revenue streams include storing goods (i.e. warehousing), their customs brokerage, shipment insurance as well as trade financing offers."

"While private and small packages can be sent across the globe without much hassle, bigger shipments (normally above 150kg) incur much greater complexity. Companies have to ensure proper customs handling, be familiar with local regulations, transport the goods on time while not damaging the shipment."

"Traditionally, so called freight forwarders have taken over those duties. To ensure shipments of the highest quality, these freight forwarders are not only experts in their local markets, but possess a great network of partners carrying out the transport."

"In order to coordinate the shipment, freight forwarders heavily rely on frequent communication using Emails, fax, telephone and spreadsheets."

"In comes Flexport, which has built a set of software solutions for companies to manage and track their logistics activities."

"More specifically, Flexport offers shipments via ocean, air and truck. The execution of these activities are either sourced out to other firms (i.e. ocean shipment via a vessel) or managed by their own fleet (Flexport, for instance, charters their own airplane)."

"Additionally, Flexport provides other supply chain services around the shipment. For instance, it can handle customs filling or offer shipment insurance."

"Customers can also apply for loans to accelerate their supply chain efforts."

"Users can track all ongoing orders (e.g., current location or customs status), communicate with and even order directly from suppliers, receive insights on business-critical metrics, store relevant documents, and so much more."

"As teenagers and during his degree at Berkley, Petersen and his brother set up various ecommerce stores (both on marketplaces like eBay as well as their own websites)."

"The tool allowed importers and exporters to stay up-to-date with current shipping rates to adjust their own pricing mechanism."

"At the time, the world’s seventh-largest shipping line declared bankruptcy, which caused many companies to look for a new freight forwarding partner. Many of those ended up working together with Flexport."

"However, the biggest accelerant to its business became the ongoing trade wars between China and the United States. Flexport responded by building even more warehouses to speed up the moving and declaration of cargo."

"The platform also unveiled a feature that would enable customers to reroute their shipments to avoid paying those tariffs."

"In July 2019, the firm launched Flexport Capital, a suite of financial offerings to soften the cash crunch that many fast-growing shippers faced due to ongoing tariff wars."

"One of those quick fixes he proposed was to stack empty containers higher than they were usually allowed to. This, apart from various appearances on TV and podcasts, even earned Petersen an audience with California governor Gavin Newsom who went on to implement some of his suggestions."

"The business model of Flexport is based on becoming a full-stack software provider that can digitize any supply chain-related process."

"In essence, Flexport vis-à-vis the namesake Flexport Platform, wants to be able to track any form of shipment to get rid of the transparency issues that have plagued the supply chain industry for centuries."

"Flexport applies storage charges in case the products have to be stored for an extended amount of time. Again, depending on location, these goods are either stored at third party warehouses or in the ones Flexport owns."

"Those higher margins are grounded in the fact that Flexport not only grows at a rapid pace but doesn’t own and operate costly air carriers, trucks, and so forth"

"Countries can have varying degrees of difficulty to complete the import process and claim products correctly. Hence, local customs brokers are oftentimes used for this portion of the logistics process."

"Flexport, according to Crunchbase, has raised $2.2 billion across 13 rounds of debt and equity funding."

"Educational institutions that created classes on Coursera include universities such as Wharton, Stanford, or Duke. On the company-side, firms like Google, Facebook, or IBM, and many others have joined the fun."

"Meanwhile, the company’s competitors (including the likes of Udemy and MasterClass) focus on instructor-led courses taught by professionals in the field."

"A year earlier, in 2011, Stanford professors Sebastian Thurn and Peter Norvig launched Udacity, an online platform of educational content. Udacity’s first class was called ‘Introduction to Artificial Intelligence’."

"Coursera’s initial start to worldwide fame became awfully similar. Ng and Koller made their own Stanford-taught course ‘Machine Learning’ available to the wider public in 2012"

"With this insane demand and a $16 million investment from Kleiner Perkins and New Enterprise Associates, Koller and Ng had all the confirmation they needed."

"As such, Coursera focused (and still does to this day) its efforts on only partnering up with the best universities in the world."

"The firm’s registered user base grew by over 65 percent to 77 million in 2020 alone. As a result, Coursera decided to go public to capitalize on those favorable market conditions. In March 2021, the firm IPO’d on the Nasdaq stock exchange."

"The main selling point of those degrees is the fact that they can be obtained at a much lower rate, oftentimes half of what on-campus degrees would cost."

"Coursera For Business, as the name indicates, gives companies and its employees access to Coursera’s database of over 3,800 classes."

"Coursera does not pay any money to the instructors or professors that teach its courses. Instead, revenue is shared with the institution (e.g. university) that hosts that course."