We just launched our new website (this one!) with tons of new content for the Maritime Startup Ecosystem, the best resources for Startups, Maritime Companies and Investors.

Learn more about

• the new Homepage Blog
• the Maritime Startup Ecosystem Directory
• Startup Wharf School
• the new Partnerships section
• the COVID Resources section
• the Publications section
• what else is in the making

Homepage Blog

We got rid of the usual website scheme where the homepage advertises the business without adding any real value to the customers, and replaced it with our brand new Homepage Blog, full of relevant information and news from across the Maritime industry and the Startup world.

“the best way to advertise what you do is by showcasing the results of your work”

We believe that the best way to advertise what you do is by showcasing the results of your work, rather than with marketing boasting, and this idea permeates the entire website and all what we do.

Beyond the blog we developed much more content and new sections following this principle of “show don’t tell.” Here’s what we cam up with.

Maritime Startup Ecosystem Directory

We listened to the requestes from all across the Ecosystem to make the profiles of the startups acessible and created the Maritime Startup Ecosystem section. All active startups from the Ecosystem appear in the section, ranked from the most recently active to the oldest ones. We consider a startup “active” when it keeps its profile up-to-date. For startups this is an excellent way to communicate to Maritime companies and investors that they are active, so to attract their interest. It is also a way to keep the content always relevant, so much so that a profile older than 1 year automatically disappears from the directory (it will reappear as soon as it gets updated by the startup).

Each profile includes the description of the startup, its most recent achievements, appearances on the press, and a “Startup Specs” section with core information about the company: launch year, location, business focus, applications, technology and social media presence.

We also decided to give visibility to our constant interaction with startups by publishing our most recent catch-up interview with each one of them in their profile page. It is a great opportunity for the audience to get to know the startups, what they do, their current development status and their fundraising journey. And of course for the startups to showcase what they are doing!

Startup Wharf School

We are very proud of our new-born the Startup Wharf School. We created the School to bridge the gap between the Maritime industry and Startups, with courses addressing both sides.

Many Maritime companies don’t take the chance to engage with Startups just because they don’t understand them and don’t know what to expect. And many startups build their innovations based on a limited understanding of the sector that consistently fall into pieces at the moment of the first contact with the client.

The courses for Maritime companies address the need to learn more about startups and guide participants in the critical decision of whether to engage with startups and how.

This is a strategic decision that all Maritime companies will have to take at some point if they want to remain relevant in this rapidly changing business world. We aim to help and guide them in the process, leveraging our long term experience of the Maritime sector AND of the startup sector which allows us to bridge the gap and facilitate the success of Maritime companies in the transition to startup-driven innovation.

At the moment 2 mini-courses are available, targeted to the Maritime professionals and companies striving to keep pace with innovation and trying to remain relevant players in a rapidly changing world, where startups have become the drivers of innovation.

• St101 – Startup Fundamentals
• St102 – Startup Engagement Essentials

Many more are in development about the actual engagement process.

The courses for startups – which are yet in the making – will address the need to understand the workings of the Maritime sector for startups and innovators coming from adjacent industries – or offering complementary solutions – so to be able to address the right challenges.

Partnerships section

We created a specific Partnerships section to showcase our partnerships and present what each one of these represent for the Ecosystem. We have developed partnerships both for the benefit of Startups and for Maritime companies.

• for Startups: through the partnership with Betatron , the Hong Kong-based VC, we can offer to all startups in the ecosystem, a fast-track application route to their accelerator programme awarding a $500k investment in the selected startups
• for Maritime companies: through the partnership with Venture Agenda we can bring to the Maritime Industry the Deal Ready™ engagement platform which helps to focus time and resources on execution and result-oriented startup-driven innovation.

Many more are in the making and will be posted in the section soon.

COVID Resources section

At the beginning of the COVID crisis we launched the COVID Resources section, which is still available and constantly updated with new resources.

A very interesting series of resources comes from Startup Genome who created a Global Knowledge Base for Ecosystem Actors including hundreds of resources available for ecosystem actors across the globe. Startup Genome publishes also a series of reports and surveys on the impact of COVID on the startup ecosystem.

Publications section

The Publications section remained substantially unchanged, but with the addition of our most recent report published in Partnership with Thetiusand sponsored by Inmarsat Maritime titled Traded 2.0 – Japan – A Quiet Revolution. This report is the first of a new series covering regional Maritime Startup Ecosystems across the world. Several other regional reports are in the making, and we are open to sponsoring opportunitiesfrom regional players, including Maritime companies with an interest in the region and local Maritime Authorities.

More in the Making!

We have many other surprises in the making, to address the needs of all the players in the Ecosystem. Watch out for the upcoming Confidential Sections dedicated to specific interactions between players in the Ecosystem.

• In the Startup to Startup confidential section, Startups will be able to look for each other and propose or request opportunities for collaboration, to jointly tackle particularly challenging projects.
• In the Startups to Investors confidential section, visoble only to validated Investors, Startups will be able to showcase their company and pitch for investment by publishing their Elevator Pitch video, Investment Pitch video and deck, and other relevant material to be shared exclusively with investors.
• In the Startups to Industry confidential section, visible only to validated Maritime Companies, Startups will be able to showcase their product, with Sales Pitch videos and decks, product demos and other material reserved exclusively for potential clients.