Overview
Customs4trade NV, also known as C4T, was founded in 2004 by Pieter Haesaert as a customs consultancy and later built a software product to automate customs and excise compliance. The company is headquartered at Motstraat 30 in Mechelen and has a second office in Wigan, United Kingdom. Ilse Vermeersch was co-founder and COO. Its platform, CAS, is delivered as SaaS on Microsoft Azure and covers customs declarations, special procedures such as customs warehousing and inward and outward processing, excise management, AI product classification, insights and master data. CAS manages more than one hundred thousand customs declarations every month for customers including Flora Food Group, Honda, Isuzu and Agristo. In 2023, 95% of declarations processed had zero manual intervention. CAS 3.0, a rebuilt version of the platform, was released on 4 June 2026 and covers 8 jurisdictions, with 12 targeted by the end of 2027. The company raised €2.145 million from 42CAP and 10x Group in January 2019, €3 million led by Hi Inov - Dentressangle in February 2020, a €17 million Series C led by 83North in June 2021, and €4 million from Hi-Innov, 42Cap, management and angel investors in April 2023. On 30 November 2022 Rupert Spiegelberg was appointed CEO and the founders stepped back from day-to-day management while remaining shareholders. Headcount was about 100 in late 2022 and some 80 in April 2023. The company holds ISO 9001:2015 and ISO 27001:2022 certifications and has been certified Great Place To Work three years in a row.
Funding history
- 2019 Series A: €2.145M from 42CAP and 10x Group
- 2020 Series B: €3M led by Hi Inov - Dentressangle, with 42CAP and 10x Group
- 2021 Series C: €17M led by 83North
- 2023 round: €4M from Hi-Innov, 42Cap, management team and European angel investors
Stated facts & numbers
- Founded: 2004
- Headquarters: Mechelen (second office in Wigan, UK)
- Founders: Pieter Haesaert, Ilse Vermeersch
- CEO: Werner Koninckx
- Employees: About 100 (Nov 2022); some 80 (Apr 2023)
- Product: CAS (Customs Automation System)
- Customers: Flora Food Group, Honda, Isuzu, Agristo, Reynaers Aluminium
- Investors: 42CAP, 10x Group, Hi Inov - Dentressangle, 83North
- Total raised: €26.1M (€22.145M through 2021 plus €4M in 2023)
- Certifications: ISO 9001:2015, ISO 27001:2022, Great Place To Work
Leadership & org chart
In the news
- The scariest thing this Halloween isn't a ghost. It's watching a competitor clear customs while you're still stuck at the border. Misclassified goods, missing documents, a shipment held up while everyone tries to figure out what went wrong. For a lot of companies, customs still feels like something to fear, a box to check and move past as quickly as possible. But treated differently, customs becomes one of the sharpest competitive advantages a company can have. Faster clearance means faster time to market. Reliable trade
- At C4T, every Great Place to Work® certification gets celebrated. Number three was no exception. 🎉 Today we came together at the office for a festive lunch to mark our third certification. Good food, good company, and a moment to appreciate the people who make C4T such a great place to be. A big shoutout to our remote colleagues too. You’re not in the picture, but you’re very much part of what we’re celebrating. 💜
- We're heading to Düsseldorf next week! On 3 and 4 November, the C4T team will be at the Customs Compliance in Europe Conference by Nielsonsmith Ltd. We're looking forward to great sessions and even better conversations with customs and compliance leaders from across Europe. You'll find us at our booth, so stop by for a chat about how customs can become a real competitive advantage for your business. See you there! Stefanie Robinson-Bull Dylan Veugelers 👉 https://hubs.li/Q04Cg1g-0
- Customs costs add up quietly: broker fees, manual admin, duty relief that never gets claimed. With CAS, our customers bring customs in-house and automate declarations straight from their ERP. What that looks like in practice: → VPK: cost per declaration reduced by a factor of ten → Kraft Heinz: 84% lower costs on its UK customs flow → Flora Food Group: 46% cost savings every year by replacing brokers with CAS → Reynaers Aluminium: costs reduced by 50% When customs stops being a cost centre, the savings go straight back into
- Three weeks ago, vape liquid became an excise product in the UK. The impact goes well beyond price. Since October 1st 2026, the Vaping Products Duty adds £2.20 per 10ml, and every newly produced or imported product needs a duty stamp. For consumers, that means a higher price. For the supply chain, it means a whole new way of working: 🔻 Importers and manufacturers now pay excise when goods are released, which hits cash flow directly 🔻 Businesses further down the chain must check that duty has been paid, so due diligence becomes
- Waiting on a broker for a status update. Chasing spreadsheets across countries. Reacting to compliance issues after they've already happened. Sound familiar? Our new whitepaper, Strengthening Customs Compliance, shows how the right technology shifts you from that kind of dependency to real time, automated control, and what that looks like in practice. Download our whitepaper now to see how other teams are making that shift: https://hubs.li/Q04xxxFg0
- Is your customs audit readiness built-in or built last-minute? As customs authorities demand faster, more data-driven responses, the gap between manual and automated compliance grows. Discover how a centralised, automated approach transforms audit readiness from a scramble to a strategic asset. Read more on the C4T blog: https://hubs.li/Q04B5RM50
- Today is Certification Nation Day, and we’re proud to celebrate it as a Great Place To Work® Certified organisation! 🎉 At Customs4trade, we help customers turn customs into a competitive advantage with our customs automation platform. That starts with the people who build it, support it and bring it to our customers. This label is based on what they told us, anonymously and honestly, about working here. We’re proud because it reflects something real: a team that cares about each other as much as about the work. #GPTWcertified
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