Smartlane GmbH, established in 2015, is a Munich-based software company and the developer of Smartlane Transport Intelligence, an AI-based software for transport optimisation in the logistics industry. Since the company’s seed phase, Frank Thelen has been a Smartlane investor through his venture capital fund Freigeist. Additional investors include Ideenschaft Invest, F-LOG Ventures, Ippen.Media and MobilityFund. The result of many years of research conducted by the founders at Munich Technical University, Smartlane Transport Intelligence enables step-by-step digitalisation and automation of transport planning (dispatch). The self-learning, cloud-based technology for the first time enables a reduction of the dispatching effort by up to 90% while optimising resource utilisation and cutting both, operating costs and CO2 emissions by up to 21%. Customers include numerous part-load distribution SMBs, including several members of the Cargoline network.