ZIM Integrated Shipping Services Ltd. (ZIM) along with other investors, has announced the initial closing of an US$8 million financing round in Spinframe, a monitoring platform for maritime, land supply chains checkpoints.

ZIM said it led this investment as part of its strategy to invest in early-stage companies involved in the digitalization of supply chains who offer novel cutting-edge services with high growth potential.

In a statement, the Israeli international cargo shipping company said Spinframe develops vehicle-inspection systems based on artificial intelligence (AI), computer vision, and machine-learning technologies, that create "Digital Twins" for vehicles throughout the supply chain and detect anomalies from the assembly line throughout the vehicle journey to the dealership and end customer. 

Its system documents vehicles and uses AI to quickly identify defects and external damage.

ZIM noted that the platform is capable of overseeing a large number of vehicles without human intervention in various locations, such as seaports, transportation and logistics hubs, parking lots, agencies, rental branches, and service centers.

The combination of advanced image processing, damage classification, and data cloud storage allows for immediate vehicle visualization and status sharing at any stage, via a unified interface.

ZIM said Spinframe's monitoring platform has already been implemented at a wide range of customers within the automotive industry, including prominent automotive OEMs, such as Volkswagen, car rental companies and dealerships.  

It added that the investment will be utilized by Spinframe to develop new and unique capabilities of Spinframe's platform, as well as to deliver a robust pipeline to implement solutions with new customers globally.

In particular, the company aims to expand its activities throughout the vehicle maritime transport segment.

 "After conducting successful PoCs, we have identified the immense potential of Spinframe's technology and its applicability to our industry. As part of our overall approach and strategy, we actively seek out and invest in promising young companies as growth engines," said Eli Glickman, ZIM president & CEO.

"This investment represents another successful partnership with a startup that specializes in digital automation solutions for the benefit of our customers. We take pride in supporting and enabling promising companies to flourish and achieve their full potential."