The Athens-based DeepSea Technologies AI software platform that monitors and optimizes the performance of commercial vessels, closed a €5M round, led by Nabtesco Technology Ventures. The Signal Group and existing investor The Environmental Technologies Fund (ETF Partners) also participated. The funds will be used for research and product development and for international expansion with a focus on the Asian market to enable more shipping companies to decarbonize their fleets.
According to Roberto Coustas, co-founder and CEO of DeepSea Technologies, the time for innovation in maritime is enabled by positive changes in the commercial environment due to the new vessel efficiency regulations of the International Maritime Organization (IMO). In May 2021 the organization introduced new measures for the establishment of an Energy Efficiency Ship Index and a CarbonIntensity Industry Indicator that aim to encourage the use of more tech in reducing the carbon footprint of fleets.
AI fleet decarbonization
Founded in 2017 by the Oxford and Cambridge AI graduates Roberto Coustas (CEO) and Kostantinos Kyriakopoulos (CTO), DeepSea provides AI-based insights and optimization solutions to shipowners and charterers to help them reach their decarbonization goals.
The platform offers its users emissions and environmental compliance and supports them in the conduct of their environmental and decarbonization reporting, performance indexing, and optimization of fuel spendings. Another key functionality of DeepSea is vessel optimization which deals with predictive alerting, automated reporting, and the provision of real-time data and performance analysis. With the collected data, the AI software platform helps users optimize their operations by offering them advanced performance routing.
The interesting mix of investors
The leading investor in the round, Nabtesco Technology Ventures, is the corporate VC of the Japanese shipping automation company Nabtesco Corporation that is managed by the climate tech VC Emerald Technology Ventures. The other new investor in DeepSea, The Signal Group, is a maritime tech investment firm that has developed the SaaS platform for commercial optimization of shipping Signal Ocean Platform. ETF Partners, which invested €3M in the company in April 2020, focuses on tech businesses that develop solutions to fight climate change.
The mix of renowned international investors who are experts in the maritime sector serves as a proof of the accuracy of DeepSea’s AI models, financial performance, and potential for future growth. Alongside R&D and international expansion, the maritime optimization startup will start a commercial and research cooperation with its leading investor Nabtesco.
Under the partnership, DeepSea will use Nabtesco’s sales network, and together they will conduct joint research on the use of tech in the maritime industry and will work on the development of joint products. There is also a possibility that DeepSea will go into a partnership with its other industry-specialized investor, The Signal Group.
“We look forward to combining our efforts with Nabtesco’s vast expertise in shipping, automation, and robotics, as well as Signal’s in market analytics, to develop new solutions to further revolutionize fleet optimization,” Konstantinos Kyriakopoulos, co-founder and CTO of DeepSea says.
