Digitalising rail freight with RailCube
Digitisation and digitalisation are two of the most used words when discussing the future of rail freight. RailCube, a software company based in Rotterdam, provides Enterprise Resource Planning solutions for Railway Undertakings (RUs) all across Europe, Senegal and Australia, helping them become more digital and speeding up various processes in their daily operations.
RailCube’s CEO Dennis Hendriksen pointed out that the company’s strength is twofold; 1. The ability to connect with any other system or platform and 2. The introduction of an entire order-to-cash process flow. “Anyone within the RU can thus work with RailCube. They can insert client data, contract details and orders followed by the whole operations around planning of the transport, locomotives and staff, they can insert financial information related to the service, including invoicing”, Hendriksen explained.
History of RailCube
The company was founded in 2011 in Paris, France by Ernstjan Aalbersberg, the current CPO/CTO. Aalbersberg started by setting up a software company with a French partner, with the goal of developing RailCube. “The project was launched in 2012 with two customers, one of them, LTE Group, is still with us”, Aalbersberg specified. He added that, since LTE has 11 branches across Europe, RailCube felt the need to develop software that can work all over the continent.Receiving the input from the LTE Group was instrumental in developing a Pan-European SaaS solution that RailCube is today.
Hendriksen joined RailCube in 2016 and he now acts as CEO/CCO. “At the end of 2018 we signed a contract with Rail Cargo Group, focussing on its Hungarian subsidiary Rail Cargo Hungaria and all their Rail Cargo Carrier branches across Europe”, he said. Inking a deal with such a large customer generated significant traction, with an increasing number of possible customers reaching out. “Today we work with about 100 RUs in Europe, Pacific National in Australia and SETER in Senegal”.
Another important period for RailCube came with the COVID-19 pandemic. “It was a blocking point for everyone, but for RailCube, it gave us more time to develop and improve the application”, Aalbersberg stated. Then, in May 2023 the company signed a Merger & Acquisition transaction with Main Capital Partners, a Dutch Private Equity Fund specialized in investing in B2B software companies, and became a majority shareholder in RailCube, entering a new phase of growth with this partnership.
RailCube’s international expansion
“In 2021, a RailCube senior developer working in France decided to move back to his home country of Portugal, so we decided to have him open up an office in Porto”, Aalbersberg mentioned. Now, RailCube’s office in Portugal can count on 13 employees who solely focus on software development.
RailCube also has an office in Australia, where it currently employs 4 people. “We have a very large customer there, Pacific National. We did a Proof of Concept with them in 2021 and in April 2022 we signed the contract”, RailCube’s CEO underlined. “Our next target is to expand into North America, we recently went to two trade fairs in the USA to get some exposure”. From initial research it seems that there is no similar all encompassing solution in North America.
We also have a customer in Senegal, which operates passenger services”, Hendriksen underlined. However, the vast majority of RailCube’s customers are rail freight companies, as he concluded.
