India's only self-serve CBEC-format export documentation engine. Fills Commercial Invoice + Packing List from your existing PDFs in under 2 minutes — no CHA, no re-typing. Built for the 63M MSMEs the ₹15,000-per-shipment documentation industry doesn't want to automate.
Primary OCR: OCR.space. Fallback: Tesseract.js + pdf.js (WebAssembly) — runs in-browser when quota runs out, no API key needed.
India has 63 million MSMEs, yet fewer than 150,000 are active exporters. The #1 reason the rest don't ship abroad isn't product quality or demand — it's documentation.
Every shipment requires 10+ cross-border documents — Commercial Invoice, Packing List, Bill of Lading, Certificate of Origin, Shipping Bill, and more. Each document asks for the same exporter info: IEC, GSTIN, PAN, bank details. Small businesses waste 3–6 hours per shipment retyping the same data, paying CHAs ₹5,000–15,000 per consignment, and risking customs delays that cost lakhs from a single typo in an HS code.
XIMVERSE makes export documentation self-serve. An exporter uploads their company profile and source invoice once. Our OCR pipeline extracts every field. Structured JSON auto-fills standard CBEC-format templates. The exporter downloads customs-ready PDFs in under 2 minutes — no CHA, no re-typing, no errors.
Who hurts today:
- First-time exporters in Tier-2/Tier-3 cities who don't know where to start
- Small textile, agri, and handicraft manufacturers in Surat, Tiruppur, Jaipur, Moradabad, etc.
- Women-led and rural MSMEs entering global trade
- Repeat exporters tired of paying agents for work that's 95% copy-paste
What they told us (from 183 early users):
- 73% said documentation is their biggest bottleneck — bigger than finding buyers
- Average exporter spends ₹3,000–8,000 per shipment on CHA fees just for docs
- 1 in 4 shipments faces delays due to documentation errors
- 89% said they'd use a self-serve tool if it mapped to standard templates
- 183 active users across 14 Indian states
- Pilot deployment underway at Deendayal Port Authority (Kandla) for real-shipment testing alongside this build
- Empanelment in progress with the Ministry of Ports, Shipping & Waterways as a service provider
- Incubated at BITS Pilani Startup Hub
- Backed by BITS Pilani Startup Hub (grant-supported)
- Active user feedback loop driving feature roadmap
The current codebase is the core automation engine powering the pilot:
- ✅ Upload Commercial Invoice PDF → OCR.space extracts shipment data
- ✅ Upload Company Profile PDF → populates exporter profile
- ✅ One-click "Create Consignment" → both PDFs auto-generated
- ✅ Download customs-ready Commercial Invoice + Packing List as a ZIP
- ✅ Consignment history with re-download
- ✅ Trade insights panel (currency, port alerts, export trends)
| The competition | XIMVERSE |
|---|---|
| Generic document automation — works for any country, any format | India-specific — CBEC format with IEC, GSTIN, Shipping Bill, HS code fields pre-wired |
| LLM-based extraction — expensive per request, hallucinates field values | Deterministic regex anchored to fixed labels — free, instant, never hallucinates a bank account number |
| API-dependent OCR — platform goes down, quota runs out, your product breaks | WebAssembly fallback (Tesseract.js + pdf.js in-browser) — zero dependency on any external API when it matters |
| Enterprise SaaS priced for freight forwarders | MSME-first — free tier, demo user bypass, no signup friction. Built for a first-time exporter in Surat, not a CHA's back office |
| English-only, global market focus | Tier-2/3 India focus — Deendayal Port pilot, DPDP Act compliance, FIEO/APEDA partnership roadmap |
India's ₹28 lakh crore export industry still runs on Excel.
No hyperbole. Commercial Invoices are typed by hand into Word templates. Packing Lists are copy-pasted from the last shipment. HS codes are looked up in PDFs. Errors cause customs holds that cost ₹2–5 lakh per incident. There is no AI-powered, self-serve export documentation tool built for Indian MSMEs. Zero. The incumbents — Customs House Agents, freight forwarders, trade consultants — profit from this complexity and have no incentive to automate it away. We do.
XIMVERSE's entry point is small and mid-sized exporters in India's agri-commodity sector — rice, spices, pulses — who face three compounding problems:
- Manual documentation — every shipment means retyping the same exporter IEC, GSTIN, and bank details into a fresh Word file
- Fragmented workflows — Commercial Invoice, Packing List, B/L data, and LC terms all live in separate files with no single source of truth
- No access to ERPs — SAP and Oracle cost ₹10–50 lakh to implement; Tally doesn't do export-specific CBEC formats
Unlike generic document tools, XIMVERSE is purpose-built for export-specific workflows — Invoice, Packing List, B/L data, LC terms — with pre-mapped templates aligned to DGFT guidelines and real trade practices. This niche is underserved, highly repetitive, and sticky: once an exporter's IEC, GSTIN, bank details, and product HS codes are in the system, they never leave.
| Layer | Why it's hard to copy |
|---|---|
| Undigitized segment, zero competition | The only "competition" is Excel, WhatsApp-forwarded Word files, and ₹15,000-per-consignment CHAs. No funded startup is targeting this. |
| Purpose-built for export workflows | Pre-mapped CBEC templates (Invoice, Packing List, B/L, LC terms) aligned to DGFT — not adapted from a generic doc tool |
| India-specific compliance formats | IEC codes, GSTIN validation, Shipping Bill (ICEGATE), DGFT export license fields — a foreign SaaS can't clone this without years of domain work |
| First-mover relationships | Deendayal Port Authority pilot, BITS Pilani Startup Hub, FIEO/APEDA pipeline — institutional trust takes years to build and can't be bought |
| AI roadmap nobody has started | The regex engine is v1. The AI layer — automatic HS code classification, compliance risk flagging, hallucination-free extraction from any document format — is v2 and nobody has built it for this segment |
| Government portal integration path | ICEGATE (customs filing), DGFT (export licenses), FSSAI, MoC — becoming the trusted connector between SMEs and government portals is a decade-long position |
v1 (now) Agri-commodity SME exporters (rice, spices, pulses)
2 documents, CBEC format, deterministic extraction
v2 (Q3 2026) All MSME commodities, 10-document pack, AI-assisted fill
Importers + CHAs added as user types
v3 (2027) API layer for freight forwarders and CHA back-offices (B2B SaaS)
ICEGATE real-time filing, compliance risk scoring
Platform 1-click complete export pack for every participant:
exporters → importers → CHAs → freight forwarders →
inspection agencies → government portals
The wedge is agri-commodity SME exporters. The platform is the entire Indian cross-border trade ecosystem — a market with no dominant software player, 63 million businesses waiting to be unlocked, and export documentation that has not changed in 30 years.
| Decision | Why |
|---|---|
| WebAssembly OCR fallback | When OCR.space quota is exhausted, we fall back to a client-side WASM pipeline: pdfjs-dist renders PDF pages to <canvas>, then Tesseract.js (WebAssembly) extracts text. Zero server round-trip, zero API key, zero quota. |
| Regex over LLM | Trade docs have fixed, labeled fields. Regex is free, instant, and deterministic — no hallucination risk on IEC/GSTIN/bank fields. LLM was prototyped and dropped. |
| Browser-direct OCR | OCR.space is called from the browser, not the server. We discovered Vercel's 10s serverless timeout was killing extractions on larger PDFs — moving it client-side eliminated the failure entirely. |
| Supabase over custom backend | Auth + DB + storage in one, letting us focus on the pipeline. We evaluated Firebase but chose Supabase for SQL and row-level security on user documents. |
| Layer | Choice |
|---|---|
| Framework | Next.js 14 (App Router) + TypeScript |
| Styling | Tailwind CSS |
| Auth | Supabase Auth (+ demo user bypass for evaluators) |
| Database | Supabase PostgreSQL |
| Storage | Supabase Storage |
| Primary OCR | OCR.space API (browser-direct) |
| Fallback OCR | Tesseract.js + WebAssembly (client-side, no API key) |
| PDF Rendering | pdfjs-dist (WebAssembly, for Tesseract fallback pipeline) |
| JSON Parsing | Plain JavaScript (regex-based, deterministic) |
| PDF Generation | @react-pdf/renderer |
| Bundling | jszip |
| Deployment | Vercel |
1. Upload Company Profile PDF (once)
└─ OCR.space extracts company data → saved to profiles table
2. Upload Commercial Invoice PDF (per consignment)
└─ OCR.space extracts shipment data → parsed to structured JSON
3. Click "Create Consignment"
└─ Profile + invoice JSON merged → Commercial Invoice + Packing List PDFs generated in-browser
4. Download ZIP
└─ Both CBEC-format PDFs bundled → customs-ready in under 2 minutes
The parsing engine uses deterministic regex anchored to fixed field labels (IEC, GSTIN, Invoice No, B/L No, etc.) — no LLM, no API cost, no hallucinations. Fallback data ensures the demo always runs even if OCR misses a field.
Click "Continue as Demo User" — no sign-up, no credentials. A sample consignment is pre-loaded.
git clone https://github.com/ashutoshrai7205/XimVerse.git
cd XimVerse
npm install
cp .env.example .env.local
# Fill in:
# NEXT_PUBLIC_SUPABASE_URL=
# NEXT_PUBLIC_SUPABASE_ANON_KEY=
# OCR_SPACE_API_KEY=
npm run dev
# → http://localhost:3000You'll need:
We take data privacy seriously — especially because our users upload sensitive business documents containing GSTIN, IEC codes, and bank details.
| Practice | Detail |
|---|---|
| Storage | Uploaded PDFs stored in private Supabase Storage buckets; access-controlled per user_id — no cross-user leakage |
| Retention | Raw OCR text is not persisted; only the structured JSON extracted from it is stored |
| No data brokering | User data is never sold, shared, or used for advertising |
| Deletion | Users can delete their profile and all consignment data at any time from the dashboard |
| Encryption | All data encrypted in transit (TLS 1.3 via Vercel + Supabase) and at rest (AES-256 via Supabase) |
| Compliance | Built in alignment with India's Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 (DPDP Act) |
| Third parties | The only third-party processor is OCR.space; document text is sent for OCR only — not retained by them under their free-tier terms |
XIMVERSE is designed to be financially self-sustaining within 6 months of the pilot.
| Plan | Price | Consignments/month | Target |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free | ₹0 | 5 | First-time exporters trying the platform |
| Starter | ₹499/month | 50 | Small exporters, 1–4 shipments/week |
| Business | ₹1,999/month | Unlimited | Growing SMEs, freight forwarders |
| Enterprise | Custom | Unlimited + API | CHAs, trade associations, port authorities |
Revenue beyond subscriptions:
- White-label licensing to Customs House Agents (CHAs)
- API access for ERP integrations (Tally, Busy, Zoho Books)
- Partnership with FIEO/APEDA for member-subsidised access
- Port authority SaaS contracts (Deendayal pilot → template for replication)
- GST Tax Invoice generation
- Certificate of Origin (Form A, SAPTA)
- Shipping Bill pre-fill (ICEGATE format)
- REST API for ERP connectors (Tally, Zoho Books)
- Direct ICEGATE e-filing integration
- Bulk consignment processing (CSV upload)
- Mobile app (React Native, iOS + Android)
- Multi-user team accounts with role-based access
- Audit trail and e-signature support (DSC)
- Full 10-document export pack
- CHA partner network (reseller programme)
- AI-assisted HS code classification
- Real-time customs duty calculator
This project is in active development as part of a pilot with Deendayal Port Authority. Contributions are welcome — especially from:
- Exporters who want to report edge cases in OCR parsing
- Developers familiar with CBEC document formats
- Anyone who has shipped goods and knows how painful this is
To contribute:
- Fork the repo
- Create a feature branch:
git checkout -b feat/your-feature - Run tests:
npm test - Submit a pull request with a clear description
Please open an issue first for significant changes.
MIT — free to use, modify, and distribute. Attribution appreciated.
Built at BITS Pilani Startup Hub. Solving real problems for real exporters.
Impact
What's visible today is a demo. What we're actually building is infrastructure.
The core insight Export documents are not paperwork — they are structured information that ports, customs, and logistics systems consume to automate operations. Every delay at an Indian port today is, at its root, a document-handling delay. Fix the document layer and you unlock everything downstream. Operational impact — turnaround time
Port turnaround time drops when documents arrive clean, validated, and machine-readable. Customs clearance accelerates because data moves directly between systems instead of being re-keyed. Fewer manual handoffs means fewer errors, fewer demurrage charges, and faster vessel cycles.
Ease of doing business — unlocking the long tail of exporters Today, export/import is effectively gated by documentation complexity. A handicraft artisan in Jaipur, a weaver in Varanasi, or a small food processor in Kerala cannot realistically navigate the 30+ document types, multi-agency approvals, and compliance formats required to ship abroad. Our platform collapses that complexity into a guided, automated workflow — making export accessible to small producers who have always been export-capable but never export-enabled. Macro-economic flywheel This is why it matters at a national scale:
More exporters → India's export base diversifies beyond a handful of sectors and large players. Diversified exports → reduced vulnerability to sector-specific shocks; stronger forex position. Rising export volume → manufacturing sector expands to meet demand. Manufacturing growth → job creation across tier-2 and tier-3 cities. Jobs → disposable income in new hands. Income → domestic demand for better, more innovative products. Demand → pressure on manufacturers to innovate and upgrade. Loop closes — and the economy compounds.
We are solving the bottleneck at step 1 so the rest of the flywheel can actually spin. Strategic alignment and credibility
Addresses 9 of the 20 "must-have" solutions identified under the India Maritime priority list. Accepted by DGFT (Directorate General of Foreign Trade), Ministry of Commerce — meaning the approach is validated at the policy level, not just the product level.
Architectural positioning — the "UPI moment" for trade The analogy we keep coming back to:
PhonePe and Google Pay did not build a payments network. They built the experience layer on top of NPCI's UPI rails.
That is exactly what we are doing for maritime trade.
NLP Marine is the underlying rails — the protocol layer for port and logistics data. We are the orchestration layer that sits on top — connecting service providers, exporters, customs, and ports into a single automated flow. Just as UPI unlocked a decade of fintech innovation by abstracting away banking complexity, a clean orchestration layer over MLP Marine can unlock a decade of trade-tech innovation in India.
In one line We are not digitising documents. We are building the orchestration layer that turns India's maritime trade rails into a platform — so that the next million exporters can plug in, and the economy can compound on top.