Ground truth, from the ocean up.

The big idea. Ships already carry weather stations, radar, GPS and a dozen other sensors, but all that information stays on board and gets thrown away. Meanwhile weather services, insurers and navies pay a fortune for a much worse picture from satellites, buoys and drone boats, all of which have to be built and kept at sea just to collect data. Real ships are already out there, already paid for, sailing exactly where the weather and the traffic are. We put a small box on them, pay the owner a share of what we earn, and sell the combined picture to the people who need it, far more cheaply than anything built for the purpose. There are over a hundred thousand ships at sea every day; whoever connects them owns the best view of the ocean there is.

Why us. “I’ve sailed forty thousand miles, nearly twice around the world, and grew up around the navy, so I know ships and the people who run them. My background is in banking and finance, and I spent years at eBay, which taught me how to build a market where both sides make money. Around me is a former ship’s master who runs our operations, a naval architect, data scientists who built our detection models and weather forecasts from our own ships’ data, and engineers who’ve kept our boxes running at sea for years. A shipowner put his own ships on the network and opens doors to others. Ship owners trust us because we’re sailors, not software salespeople.”

— Sebastiaan Ambtman, founder

Is it working. For years now we’ve had tankers, bulk carriers, cargo ships, survey vessels, fishing fleets and ferries sending us data from every ocean, including the high Arctic. Paying customers in ferry operations, ports, defence and commercial shipping use it. Big data companies have come to us asking for hundreds of ships; that’s the network we’re building now. Buyers want more ships; shipowners want in. We’re in the middle, which is exactly where we planned to be.