- Belli, a Singapore startup founded by former airline cargo pros, is redefining digital transformation with practical, insider-built tools that eliminate paper and spreadsheets — deploying full-scale cargo systems in just three weeks.
- Its edge lies in implementation by cargo product engineers, not consultants, ensuring every rollout is handled by people who’ve actually run airline ops, solving real inefficiencies in commercial, ground, and finance teams.
- Belli’s modern architecture and AI-driven tools are already delivering results, from intuitive booking portals that cut handling time and boost conversions to real automation tackling planning, optimisation, and real-time operational control.
The air cargo industry has no shortage of automation promises. But while legacy systems stall and global tech vendors pitch solutions from afar, a new kind of transformation is quietly taking root, one built by insiders who’ve actually run cargo ops in Southeast Asia.
At the centre of this shift is Belli, a Singapore-based startup led by former airline cargo professionals now engineering the tools they once wished existed. For Foon Qiao Hui, Product Engineer at Belli and formerly part of the cargo technology team at AirAsia’s Teleport unit, the mission is simple: “Eliminate all paper, spreadsheets, and manual processes within air cargo operations.”
It’s a bold claim — but it’s also surprisingly practical. And in contrast to the bloated implementation cycles that define much of the industry, Belli’s team says it’s already deploying full-scale cargo systems in as little as three weeks.
Built by cargo people, not consultants
Belli isn’t solving abstract tech problems. It’s going after the painfully specific inefficiencies that airline cargo teams still live with daily, especially in three departments: commercial, ground ops, and finance.
What sets the company apart is not just the software, but the implementation model. “The unique thing that we do differently is that we have cargo product engineers do the on-the-ground implementation,” Foon explained.
“That means airlines are always interfacing with someone who has both operational cargo experience and a software engineering background.”
That’s a critical difference in a sector where many vendors still deploy sales teams or generalist consultants with no firsthand aviation experience. “Our biggest frustration was working with providers who had never worked at an airline and couldn’t code,” she said. “Simple problems would take weeks to solve.”
From zero to operational in three weeks
Backed by recent funding, Belli has increased its product development velocity – and is now gearing up for what it calls a “three-week implementation” of an end-to-end cargo management system for a mid-size airline in Southeast Asia. That timeline would be unthinkable with legacy vendors, where integration often drags on for months or even years.
A large part of this speed comes from building modern architecture from scratch. Belli’s frontend stack is built on Vercel — a platform popular in high-performance tech circles — giving it an edge over vendors “still building on deprecated infrastructure.”
The pace is paying off. Belli placed second at the Vercel AI Accelerator in San Francisco this July, beating out nearly 900 other venture-backed software startups from around the world.
Fix the booking portal, fix the problem
When asked what early customers are responding to, the answer is surprisingly straightforward: a usable, modern booking portal.
“The easiest thing an airline can do is give their freight forwarders a booking portal,” Foon said.
“Imagine if a passenger airline didn’t let you search or book flights online, and made you go through a travel agent. That’s still the reality for most cargo operations today.”
According to Belli, a functional portal can cut booking time by at least 20 percent, raise conversion rates to 5 percent, and eliminate up to 70 percent of inbound customer service queries — most of which are basic (quote requests, capacity checks, track-and-trace).
The message is clear: forget chasing advanced AI features until the basics are fixed.
Unlike much of the hype surrounding AI in logistics, Belli’s use of artificial intelligence is grounded in actual deployment – not demo slides.
Internally, the company has restructured its software engineering hiring process to prioritise AI tool proficiency over traditional coding tests. Engineers are evaluated based on their command of AI tools and the quality of prompts they use daily.
Externally, AI is already powering real features that replace manual spreadsheet work, and Belli sees it soon tackling harder computational problems like weight and balance optimisation and dynamic capacity planning.
What the industry gets wrong
According to Foon, the biggest myth in the industry is that cargo teams are resistant to change. “Airline cargo departments do want to change. They’ve just never had qualified software partners to work with until now.”
That statement doesn’t come from a consultant. It comes from a team who’s helped a carrier swap out seven ERP systems in seven months, and is now building systems that they wish they’d had.
