Nnamdi Okafor, founder of Kargoplex, joins Sunny Ray to discuss building an AI operating layer for the twelve trillion dollar global shipping industry. Okafor started his freight brokerage almost by accident while studying computer science in college, helping a family friend ship a package before becoming a go to consolidator for shippers stuck using paper logs, phone calls and WhatsApp. He shares how fifteen years in logistics taught him that the industry's real problem is trust and neutrality, not just outdated software, and describes a painful six hundred thousand dollar loss caused by demurrage fees, customs delays and currency volatility on a shipment from Nigeria. Rather than walking away, the setback convinced him to build infrastructure that lets shippers, forwarders and carriers speak one language instead of guarding siloed systems. He explains why Kargoplex meets customers on WhatsApp using AI agents instead of forcing a platform switch, and why he sees forwarders like Flexport as allies rather than competitors, since the real competitor is inertia. The conversation covers his time at IBM, informal consulting work on international shipping deals, and his vision for a neutral, AI powered rail connecting global trade.
A freight broker who lost $600K to logistics chaos built Kargoplex, an AI layer to fix shipping's trust problem.
Can you talk a little about what you're building at Kargoplex?
At Kargoplex we're building the AI operating layer for global shipping, basically the rail that powers the whole logistics industry. Think of it like the AWS of shipping, but with AI agents handling bookings and coordination instead of relying on emails, phone calls and spreadsheets.
How big is the shipping industry?
As of 2026 it's estimated at about 12 trillion dollars annually. It's the one industry that touches almost everything in our lives. Almost everything you do or buy has to pass through global logistics at some point, so the scale is honestly hard to wrap your head around.
What did the industry look like from the inside when you started?
It was chaos, and it's still chaotic today, just less so. I fell into the industry by accident while studying computer science, helping a friend ship something home. I kept seeing millionaires running operations off paper books, flipping pages to find a container status. I knew there had to be a better way.
How does a student end up moving millions of dollars of freight?
Honestly I still don't fully know how it happened. I built a reputation for fighting for people's cargo, even taking losses myself so clients wouldn't. That trust brought bigger opportunities, like consulting on a Nigerian government subway car deal and helping an African shipping line buy a vessel from China.
What did running that brokerage teach you that a software founder might never learn from the outside?
It taught me logistics is fundamentally a people problem, not a software problem. You can build the best system in the world, but if people aren't on board it won't matter. That's humbled how we build at Kargoplex, meeting customers on WhatsApp with AI agents instead of forcing them onto a new platform.
You lost $600,000 to this problem personally. Can you walk me through what happened?
It was demurrage charges, customs clearance surprises and lost containers, one of which took weeks to find. The heaviest part came from Nigeria, where currency volatility meant the exchange rate nearly tripled while we waited, turning an already bad loss into a much bigger one by the time we recovered the product.
What was the moment you stopped seeing that as your mistake and started seeing it as the industry's?
After I sat with it, I realized there wasn't much I personally could have done differently. It wasn't my mistake, it was the industry's structural problem. That reframe re-energized me. Instead of walking away, I felt like I finally had a real reason to fix the problem for everyone, not just myself.
Why build infrastructure instead of just tightening your process?
We estimated that around 70 percent of that pain could be alleviated with the right infrastructure, one that's open rather than siloed, so everyone speaks the same language regardless of country or role in the supply chain. That transparency cuts out costly errors like a misread character on a bill of lading.
Building something daring? Sunny talks to founders like this every day. Fifteen minutes to see if your story belongs on the stage.
Claim your pre-interview