Heylog

Overview

Heylog was the first digital company in our portfolio: founded together with industry partners and built from zero. The MVP solved a problem every freight forwarder knows, which is communicating with drivers while they are on the road.

Context

There is a gap between the dispatch desk and the cab. Phone calls interrupt the drive, email reaches nobody on the road, and the forwarder’s systems do not extend into the vehicle. What does get through is messaging. Drivers already use WhatsApp, on their own device and without training.

The trouble is that this leaves an unstructured chat log. Nobody reliably pulls a status, a proof or a document back out of it into the system the forwarder actually works in.

The MVP

The goal of the MVP was exactly that connection: communication with drivers on the road over WhatsApp and comparable messaging services, wired into the forwarder’s systems. The approach deliberately met drivers where they already were, instead of asking for yet another app that nobody opens during a shift.

Workflows powered by AI

Workflows were the centre of it: a chat on its own only provides the communication. A problem is solved only once a message becomes a step in a process, from an agreed tour through a captured document to a status that has been set.

AI is what made those workflows possible. It translates between a freely worded message and a structured transaction, without anyone filling in a form at the roadside.

Outcomes

From zero to first revenue in under six months. Product, team and sales grew in parallel.

€3.8 million in funding. From partners who know the market: Schmitz Cargobull, LKW WALTER and 9.5 Ventures.

A team of eleven. International, headquartered in Vienna, Austria.

Heylog today

Heylog is a joint project of LKW WALTER, Schmitz Cargobull and 9.5 Ventures. The company is now led by new management, which has taken it in a different direction. What is described here is the build-up phase we were responsible for.