Keeping sales moving
HURRICANE Commerce, the technology developer ensuring that crossborder trade and its red tape minefield will make businesses rather than break them, is scaling up its solutions as e-commerce sales explode.
“Nothing moves without the right data,” warns CEO Martyn Noble who is currently seeking £3 million of growth capital, an addition to the £5 million backing already invested in the Northampton-based company.
Global e-commerce sales are predicted to be worth £5 trillion by 2022, with 22 per cent of those being cross-border.
Hurricane’s software services, which are used by intermediaries such as e-com- merce and multi-carrier platforms, logistics companies and postal operators, are forecast to deliver a £13 million turnover next year.
Noble explains: “If products don’t have the right data they get stuck in customs, causing delays which cost time, money and opportunities.
“No business can afford the huge fines and bans that can result. Increasing regulation is happening, whether that is in the EU, the US or elsewhere. Compliance is a must.”
Spotting the massive changes coming down the track, Noble co-founded Hurricane in 2016 with David Spottiswood and a team of experts in the parcels, logistics and compliance industries with the aim of creating bespoke technology in-house to meet existing and future market needs.
Today it employs 30 staff internationally, offering technology that integrates seamlessly into any platform or website with front-end services for retailers and back-end ones for postal and logistics firms.
At its core is Bluestone, its artificial intelligence deep learning platform. Capable of understanding product language and nuances, it instantly matches them against the most appropriate customs commodity description
‘It’s a new approach to a real world problem’
and its key classification system – or HS6 code.
Duty and tax calculations, the screening of prohibited and restricted goods and denied parties are dealt with by the computing interface Aura. Its counterpart Zephyr handles advance work. “This is the gamechanger,” says Noble. “We’ve taken a new approach to a real world problem, enabling the efficient checking and completion of cross-border preadvices submitted to postal authorities by retailers and marketplaces.
“Customers don’t get the ‘calling card’ shock of being asked to pay more on the doorstep. It avoids millions of parcels being caught at customs.”
While other providers offer one of Hurricane’s services, Noble says that no one brings it all together in one set of solutions, in real time, in a market where everything moves so quickly.
Tax reliefs have played a critical role in Hurricane’s success. “These make the UK as good a place as anywhere to start a tech or life sciences business,” adds Noble.
“But building a cutting edge tech business does not happen overnight.”