Dockflow is a finalist for the 2026 B19 Young Talent Award by Belfius. Voting is open now, and the national finale is June 15. Before you click the link, here’s what we actually built and why.
What Is the B19 Young Talent Award by Belfius?
The B19 Young Talent Award is a Belgian business award run by B19, the national business network, in partnership with Belfius bank. Each year, entrepreneurs under 40 pitch to an expert jury and live audience across regional heats in cities across Belgium.
The Antwerp heat brought together four finalists from different sectors. Dockflow was one of them. The national finale takes place on June 15, 2026 at Belfius headquarters in Brussels. Public votes count alongside the jury assessment. That’s why this post exists.
Why Did We Build Dockflow?
Freight forwarders lose money because of a problem that has nothing to do with how good they are at their job.
A container leaves the port of Antwerp. Three weeks later, the forwarder’s customer calls asking where it is. The forwarder opens five different carrier portals, logs in manually to each one, and finds outdated or conflicting information. They call the carrier. Meanwhile, the container has been sitting at the destination port for four days. Free time expired on day three. Demurrage fees are accumulating.
Nobody was alerted. Nobody saw it coming. Now someone has to explain to the customer why their cargo is stuck, who is paying the fees, and how long it will take.
This is not an edge case. It happens daily, at freight forwarders of every size. We talked to dozens of operations managers before building anything. Same story every time: visibility into active shipments was manual, fragmented, and slow. Carrier portals were built for carriers, not for the people managing shipments on behalf of their customers.
The software that existed was designed for a different era of logistics. We built Dockflow for this one.
What Does Dockflow Actually Do?
Dockflow, a container tracking platform for freight forwarders and logistics operators, connects directly to 120+ ocean carriers and pulls real-time milestone data automatically. No manual portal logins. No copy-pasting ETAs into spreadsheets. No waiting for a carrier to send an update.
When an ETA shifts, when a container hits customs hold, when free time is about to run out: the right person gets an alert before it becomes a problem. The Action Center surfaces exceptions automatically and ranks them by urgency, so teams work through the ones that matter instead of monitoring everything manually.
On the visibility side, every active shipment appears in a single view. ETAs are updated automatically using data cleaned by GraphTP, our proprietary conflict resolution algorithm, which reconciles inconsistencies across multiple carrier sources. Carriers report the same milestone differently. GraphTP resolves that and gives you a single, reliable number.
Demurrage Tracking monitors free time across all active containers. When a container is at risk, the alert goes out before the fee clock starts, not after the invoice arrives.
The Customer Portal gives freight forwarders a branded, self-service view to share directly with their shipper customers. When a customer can check their own shipment status in real time, the calls stop. The relationship gets stronger.
Most customers are live on Dockflow in under 24 hours.
Where Is Dockflow Today?
We track over €16 billion in cargo value every year, with a 98% retention rate.
Gaurav Sethi, CEO of Intercont Freight Liners, was direct about what changed: “Before Dockflow, we needed 2 full-time employees to continuously monitor our shipments in transit.”
That’s the operational impact. Two people freed from manual monitoring.
Why This Award Matters to Us
The B19 Young Talent Award is recognition from the Belgian business community. Antwerp is the second-largest container port in Europe. The freight forwarders, customs brokers, and logistics operators working around it move an enormous amount of the world’s goods. Most of the software they use was not built for them.
Getting recognized in Antwerp, by a Belgian jury, for work done in maritime freight technology. That means something specific. It’s not a startup award for being interesting. It’s validation from the sector we’re building inside.
A win here tells customers, future team members, and the companies around us that Belgian maritime tech is producing tools that matter in global logistics. We think that’s worth voting for.
Vote Before June 15
Voting takes 30 seconds.
The national finale is June 15, 2026 at Belfius headquarters in Brussels.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the B19 Young Talent Award by Belfius? A Belgian business award run by B19 (national business network) and Belfius bank, recognising entrepreneurs under 40. Dockflow competed in the Antwerp regional heat. The national finale is June 15, 2026 at Belfius headquarters.
How do I vote for Dockflow? Go to poll-maker.com/QW7YY2NBI and cast your vote. Voting closes before the June 15 nationale finale.
What does Dockflow do? Dockflow is a LogOps platform for freight forwarders. It connects to 120+ ocean carriers, tracks shipments in real time, alerts teams before demurrage fees hit, and gives forwarders a branded customer portal. Most customers are live in under 24 hours.
Who founded Dockflow? Dockflow was co-founded in Antwerp by Michiel Valee and Pauline Van Ostaeyen (Forbes 30 Under 30 Europe). It is an imec.istart portfolio company with 98% customer retention, tracking over €16 billion in cargo value every year.
