Global logistics company Flexport has filed a lawsuit against Freightmate, a Seattle-area startup, accusing its founders of stealing confidential trade secrets before launching their competing business.
The suit, filed in federal court in California, names Freightmate CEO Bryan Lacaillade and CTO Yingwei (Jason) Zhao as defendants. Flexport alleges that the two former employees conspired to form their company while still working at Flexport, which specializes in cloud-based freight forwarding and brokerage services.
According to the lawsuit, Lacaillade left Flexport last year, while Zhao remained at the company to secretly extract tens of thousands of sensitive commercial documents, including Flexport’s source code. The suit further claims that Zhao used techniques to conceal his actions.
Flexport confronted Freightmate about the alleged data theft last year, at which point Freightmate reportedly admitted to taking confidential files without authorization. The startup allegedly used these files to gain insights into how generative AI digitizes shipping documents. However, Freightmate denied using or accessing Flexport’s proprietary materials, stating they were “inadvertently retained.”
The lawsuit argues that Freightmate’s rapid ability to serve Flexport’s competitors and customers was only possible through improper access, copying, and use of Flexport’s intellectual property. Flexport is now seeking monetary damages, an injunction, and the return and destruction of all proprietary documents.
“Freightmate is a product of theft, not ingenuity,” the lawsuit states.
In response, a Freightmate spokesperson told GeekWire:
“We dispute Flexport’s claims and intend to vigorously defend ourselves in court.”
Before founding Freightmate, Lacaillade was director of product management at Flexport, while Zhao served as principal technical program manager. Both joined the company in 2021 after working in logistics roles at Amazon.
Freightmate focuses on automating freight document processing, with its first product, Docmate, designed to digitize, categorize, and validate shipping documents. The startup has received significant investment, raising $5 million in a seed round led by Fuse in January, following a pre-seed round led by Wischoff Ventures last year.
Freightmate’s third co-founder, Rishab Gadroo, a former Amazon engineering leader, is not named in the lawsuit.
The case highlights Seattle’s growing logistics tech sector, driven by industry giants such as Amazon and Flexport, which maintains an engineering office in the region.
Founded in 2013, Flexport is among the leading global supply chain firms, valued at $8 billion after securing a $935 million Series E round in 2022. The company later received an additional $260 million from Shopify.
Meanwhile, former Flexport CEO Dave Clark, who resigned in September 2023, has since launched his own supply chain startup, Auger, based in Bellevue, Washington. The company raised $100 million in October.
