Navlandis, revolutionizes shipping with its Zbox folding container

• Navlandis, Start-up accelerated by Climate-KIC, has also been supported by IVACE, Climate-KIC partner.
• The young Valencian company has made its presentation to investors, media and potential clients with a real demonstration of its prototype in the Port of Valencia

Navlandis has presented in the Port of Valencia its Zbox, the revolutionary folding container that saves costs in transport and CO2 emissions.

The act of presentation was supported by the Port Authority of Valencia, with its President, Aurelio Martínez, and the Generalitat Valenciana, through its Regional Secretary of Economy, Mª José Mira. The event has get together the main shipping companies operating in the Port of Valencia, investors, and potential customers of this innovative container.

The presentation of Navlandis´ proposal, is a 20-foot folding container, which once empty and folded gets to place 5 units in the space that a standard container occupies, with the consequent reduction of logistical costs, transport and CO2 emissions.

Nowadays, this transport represents millions of containers traveling around the world, and in this sense, Aurelio Martínez stated that “there are 164 million movements of TEU’s” reason why an innovation like this one is an opportunity for investors and for the port community that should be able to integrate it into the logistics chain on a global scale in an easy way”.

The President of the Port Authority of Valencia has congratulated Navlandis as a high R & D Valencian company and said that “an innovation introduced in a port is quickly replicated by the rest of the world’s ports”. After Martínez, Miguel Navalón, the Navlandis´ CEO, explained the technical characteristics and business model of Zbox.

As he pointed out in his presentation, the empty containers are the 25% of the sea traffic, and the Zbox of Navlandis minimizes it to a fifth.

During his speech, Navalón said that the transport of containers with this folding system “will reduce up to 50% of operating costs of companies, and up to 20% of CO2 emissions” . Other added value is “an easy folding, with a not much manual work“. The company will run “a series of pilot routes to check the suitability of the container which will allow us to find our space in the market.”

The container complies the requirements, standards and dimensions of any ordinary container. Specifically, it has all the ISO and CSC certifications, which guarantee the requirements of load, resistance and watertightness of the logistics industry, with the added value of being able to manage very easily and advantageously the empty containers.

According to estimates of shipping containers, it is estimated that at present there are around 40 million units (TEUs) globally, and that in 2014 shipping companies bought 5 million new containers, representing a market of about 12 billion of annual dollars, in which Navlandis aims to sell 3,000 units in 2019.

Navlandis has also exposed the advantages of Zbox and its added value in reference to its Dutch competitor, which is 50% more easy to fold, 25% cheaper to produce, and 25% more profitable to exploit.

Navlandis and his CEO have been reaching some milestones since it was founded in 2015 as start-up and participated at Climate-KIC Programmes: Start-up Accelerator and Pioneers, the professional mobility programme.

His passage through Climate-KIC did not get unnoticed, because that year was also European finalist of the Venture Competition that was held in Birmingham.

As Navalón said, and after their passage in 2015 through Climate-KIC, in January 2016 they obtained financing from IVACE, closed the first round of investment of € 150k in July 2016, in January 2017 they were approved as a H2020 project, and they are currently closing the second round of € 400k investment. As a next step, the Navlandis team plans to carry out commercial actions, with verification of the savings and optimization of the Zbox by launching pilot routes. They plan to open the third round of investment for € 2m for the first quarter of 2018, and start with the commercial sale of 3000 units in 2019. Video demo: http://www.climatekic-spain.org/demo-del-contenedor-plegable-de-navlandis/