Danish shipping giant Maersk invests $1.2 million in logistics startup IncoDocs

An unlikely friendship between a former North Queensland Cowboy, an international trader and an IT expert has attracted a $1.2 million investment from the Danish shipping giant Maersk.

An unlikely friendship between a former North Queensland Cowboy and an international trade analyst has attracted the attention of a global business behemoth.

Two mates, Brandon Boor and Ben Thompson, will this year celebrate a memorable 10th year in business together because Danish shipping giant Maersk have invested $1.2 million in their latest start-up company, IncoDocs.

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Founded in 2016 with the help of tech engineer David Hooper, IncoDocs now supplies cloud-based logistic support software to 4,000 small-to-medium sized companies based in 120 countries.

The company employs another three staff at its Brisbane CBD office, but IncoDocs CEO Boor, 31, said the injection of capital would hopefully see them double that number within 12 months as their expansion continues.

After a career in football, Boor said he and Thompson, 31, first identified a gap in the market for their services when they launched their own imports-and-exports business in Townsville 10 years ago.

“As we started to expand our business, we stumbled across documentation issues with our suppliers, which we found to be quite a big problem,” Boor said.

“When we looked to the market for solutions we couldn’t find one that suited us, so we started to work on one for ourselves.”

Brisbane company IncoDocs founders Ben Thompson (left), Brandon Boor and David Hooper. Picture: Nigel Hallett

At the time, businesses of smaller scale could not afford access to the expensive, streamlined logistic support systems powering industry giants like Maersk.

Thompson and Boor’s solution was to build a trade documentation tool that would help level the playing field.

A move to Brisbane for a six-month stint at River City Labs’ accelerator in 2016 saw the pair cross paths with future Chief Technology Officer Hooper, an IT student from Ipswich with the technical ability to build the platform.

Boor said part of the $1.2 million investment will be put toward addressing the time zone and language barriers with local support services.

The company plans to stay in Brisbane at the moment but the need to relocate to better service foreign clients may necessitate a move in the future, he said.