40 million unique shipments enter the US every year, accounting for about $3 trillion worth of goods. In 2024, Customs and Border Protection collected $88 billion in duties. In 2025, CBP is on track to collect $200 billion, an over 2x increase from prior years.
The burden is extremely high on US importers. Not only do they face record-high duty expenses, but the regulatory landscape is shifting faster than ever. Importers are struggling to keep up and adapt.
Our mission is to reduce the burden of trade and compliance so that importers can focus on doing what they love: building and selling products. We believe those who participate in the global economy should be able to do so with minimal friction and high visibility. We also believe that smaller business should have access to the same tools that larger corporations can take advantage of.
Our journey begins with duty drawback - a tax recovery process that puts cash back into companies’ hands. It’s a cumbersome process that requires an immaculate record of trade documents and industry expertise. Because the process is so specialized and cumbersome, 70-80% of the estimated $10B in eligible refunds go unclaimed every year.
Caspian is building a data model and intuitive interface that lets users view, analyze, and action their trade volume; we connect to data sources across the supply chain to create a centralized repository of their trade network. With this data asset, customers go through the duty drawback process compliantly and efficiently. We collect a fee only when they’re paid, creating an incentive structure that is low commitment and benefits all.
The challenge is in the data - trade data is notorious for being fragmented and messy, coming in various forms such as raw documents, Excel sheets, CSVs, and/or API integrations. We’re leveraging technology to pull it into our system and connect it all together. As we expand, the same foundation will power future trade compliance products (link).
Because of the sensitive and compliance-heavy nature of this industry, building trust with our customers is of utmost importance. This has shaped our product and engineering culture into prioritizing reliability and thoughtfulness. We’re leveraging AI in an industry with a high consequence for inaccuracies. We take pride in the work we’ve done to keep that level of trust high.
The Caspian team is currently 8 people; 3 of us are in engineering and the rest are scattered across sales, operations, and customs. Many of us are startup and trade veterans with product and logistics experience at some of the best companies in the industry. The core team cut their teeth at Flexport, where we built out the customs and drawback products while helping the company scale from hundreds to thousands of people.
The engineering team is currently based in San Francisco, working out of a private office space in a WeWork 3 days a week. The non-engineering team is split between San Francisco and remote.
We are a seed stage company and have raised $5.4M in total funding. We’ve built an initial product, onboarded tens of customers, and have real revenue. We are a licensed customs organization and many members of the team are LCBs (Licensed Customs Brokers). We’re growing fast and establishing a solid footing in the space.
We’re growing our engineering team! We’re looking to hire a Senior Software Engineer to help own and contribute to the foundation of our tech.
Some of the technical challenges we’re working on: