NYSHEX has raised a Series D financing led by NewRoad Capital Partners and Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) to expand NYFI, the container freight index built on shipped rates. ICE is deepening its investment, and ICE’s Stuart Williams joins the NYSHEX board.
Round led by NewRoad Capital Partners and Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), with participation from existing investors. ICE’s Stuart Williams joins the NYSHEX Board of Directors.
NEW YORK, November 10, 2026 — New York Shipping Exchange (NYSHEX) today announced that it has raised a Series D financing to expand the NYSHEX Freight Index (NYFI). NYFI is the container freight index underpinning index-linked contracts and related exchange-traded freight futures.
NewRoad Capital Partners and Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) led the round, and existing investors also took part. As part of ICE’s deeper investment, Stuart Williams, Chief Operating Officer of ICE, will join the NYSHEX Board of Directors.
The financing will support the next phase of NYFI’s development: broader geographic coverage, greater granularity and deeper analytics around the listed futures contracts. NYSHEX will also continue to expand its software for shippers, carriers and forwarders.
Supply chain risk is a structural challenge for the container shipping industry, and it is no longer a specialist concern. In May 2026, 62% of US executives named supply chain and logistics as their number one business threat, up from 45% five months earlier. Seventy percent of CEOs at companies with more than $500 million in revenue said they would accept higher costs in exchange for resilience.1
NYSHEX was founded to help the industry manage these risks more effectively. The Series D financing enables the company to continue that mission.
NYFI launched in April 2025 as the first container freight index built on rates that actually shipped, rather than on booked or quoted rates. The distinction matters. A quote reflects what someone was willing to charge, while a shipped rate reflects what was actually paid for cargo that moved.
That foundation supports two related uses. In an index-linked contract, the freight rate moves with a published index instead of staying fixed for the full term. In freight futures, market participants trade exchange-listed contracts that settle against the index. This gives shippers, carriers and forwarders a way to offset the price movements they face in the physical market.
ICE administers NYFI. In 2026, ICE listed four futures contracts settled against the index, covering the major Asia–US and Europe trade lanes.
Agriculture, oil, electricity and bulk shipping markets have hedged price risk for decades. With NYFI and the ICE-listed contracts, container shipping can now do the same.
NYSHEX will use the Series D funding to build out NYFI in three areas:
NYSHEX will also continue to expand its suite of software products that help shippers, carriers and forwarders manage the execution risk caused by market volatility.
“Container freight rates have been more volatile since 2020 than at any point in this industry’s history, and for most of that time there was nothing anyone could do except absorb it. An index built on shipped transactions, with futures and options contracts listed against it, is the first real answer enabling market participants to manage supply chain risk. Our investors are backing that direction, and this funding goes into building it out,” said Gordon Downes, CEO and co-founder of NYSHEX.
“Container shipping remains a very volatile market in which participants have had few tools to manage price risk. NYFI is built on transactions that actually shipped, which is what makes it a credible settlement benchmark. The NYFI-linked container freight futures have joined ICE’s liquid global tanker freight and bunker fuel markets, further expanding the risk management tools available to the shipping industry. We are pleased to deepen our investment and to join the board,” said Stuart Williams, COO, Intercontinental Exchange.
“I spent my career at Walmart managing the largest global supply chain, and the gap between what a contract says and what actually happens has always been a major challenge. At NewRoad Capital, we have continued to support NYSHEX as it develops NYFI and financial hedging products that I would have embraced had they existed while I was running Walmart’s supply chain,” said Chris Sultemeier, EVP Logistics (Ret.), Walmart Stores, and Operating Partner, NewRoad Capital Partners.
1 Sentry Insurance, 2026 C-Suite Stress Index, conducted by Wakefield Research (December 2025 and May 2026 surveys); Proxima, Global Supply Chain Resilience Outlook, 2026.
New York Shipping Exchange (NYSHEX) supplies the infrastructure, data, software and services the container shipping industry uses to manage supply chain risk. Its Market Intelligence tools, built on NYFI, help users manage market risk. Its Planning & Execution tools help users manage execution risk. NYFI is administered by ICE and published free to the industry. NYSHEX is an FMC-regulated shipping exchange, governed by carriers, shippers and forwarders, and is used by more than 200 shippers, carriers and forwarders worldwide. Learn more at nyshex.com.
Want to compare plans first? See what's included in NYFI PRO.
NYFI is published weekly, every Friday at 10:00 ET, based on rates for cargo shipped in the previous week. Lane examples in this article are illustrative.
This article is for general information only and is not investment advice. Trading futures and options involves risk, including the loss of the premium paid.
This article is for general information only and is not investment advice. Trading futures and options involves risk, including the loss of the premium paid.
Want to see how an index-linked contract with a hedge would have performed on your lanes? Simulate your contract with NYFI here.
Want to see how an index-linked contract with a hedge would have performed on your lanes? Simulate your contract with NYFI here.
Want to see how an index-linked contract with a hedge would have performed on your lanes? Simulate your contract with NYFI here.
Want to see how an index-linked contract with a hedge would have performed on your lanes? Simulate your contract with NYFI here.
Want to see how an index-linked contract with a hedge would have performed on your lanes? Simulate your contract with NYFI here.
Want to see how an index-linked contract with a hedge would have performed on your lanes? Simulate your contract with NYFI here.
Want to see how an index-linked contract with a hedge would have performed on your lanes? Simulate your contract with NYFI here.
Why it matters for the container freight derivatives market
Why it matters for the container freight derivatives market
Why it matters for the physical market
Illustrative figures only. They exclude brokerage, clearing fees and margin, and do not reflect actual NYFI levels or option prices.
• A call option protects against rising rates. It pays out if NYFI settles above the agreed level. The natural buyers are those who pay for freight and want protection against rising rates: shippers, BCOs and NVOCCs buying capacity.
• A put option protects against falling rates. It pays out if NYFI settles below the agreed level. The natural buyers are those who sell freight and want protection against falling rates: carriers, and NVOCCs selling at market-linked prices.
Two numbers define every option. The strike price is the NYFI level where protection starts. The premium is what you pay upfront for that protection. A strike close to today's market rate gives more protection and costs more. A strike further away costs less and only pays out on a bigger rate move, much like choosing the deductible on an insurance policy.
Consider an illustrative example of an options hedge. A European importer ships 300 FEU a month from Asia to North Europe on an index-linked contract that moves with NYFI, so its freight bill rises and falls with the market. It has a Q1 freight budget of $3,000 per FEU, or $2.7 million for the quarter. To protect that budget, it buys call options with a $3,000 strike and pays a premium of $150 per FEU. If rates spike and NYFI settles at $4,200, the importer pays $4,200 under its contract, the option pays the $1,200 difference above the strike, and the net cost is $3,150 per FEU: the strike plus the premium. That's $945,000 less than the unhedged bill. If rates soften and NYFI settles at $2,400, the option expires unused, and the importer pays $2,400 plus the $150 premium, a net $2,550 per FEU, well under budget. Either way, the worst case was known on the day the option was bought.
Want to see how an index-linked contract would have performed on your lanes? Simulate your contract with NYFI here.
Want to see how an index-linked contract would have performed on your lanes? Simulate your contract with NYFI here.
Why fixed rates break