Cargo ships that enter a commercial port incur costs called “payments'' and “port call expenses.'' These may include port fees, towing fees, and pilotage fees. It's a complex patchwork, with every port performing its own steps, many of which are done on spreadsheets. The global cost of port calls exceeds $220 billion annually, including all ships.
Now, Harbor Lab, the Greek maritime software startup we last covered when it raised a €6.1 million seed round, has raised $16 million in a Series A funding round led by European VC Atomico.
According to Harbor Lab, the cost of ship calls is the second-largest expense for commercial ships after fuel, amounting to about $2.2 million per year per ship.
The company claims its platform streamlines these costs, reducing the margin of error for billing errors and overpayments from 20% to just 3% per port call.
Antonis Malaxianakis told me over the phone: I myself have manually checked over 20,000 payment accounts, so I knew every aspect of the business and industry key points. So for us, the moment we got seed funding, had the software engineering breathing room, and were able to focus on a very rigorous roadmap, we knew we were successful. ”
Furthermore, he added: “There is a war going on. But in the shipping industry, freight rates are going up because of that and the added danger. We have ships and agents all over the world. When the war happened overnight, we had to sanction 100 people who participated overnight.”
Atomico partner Ben Bloom told me: We came to Harbor Lab with that lens. There are several different stages in a commercial maritime journey, each requiring associated software… We found this company to be the most exciting to join. ”
He added: “In Antonis, I think we have a really visionary founder in front of us. He brings a tremendous amount of energy to the business he's building and has deep industry experience. He is a person who exists.''
New environmental laws and various geopolitical crises have made it urgent to address the complexities of freight transportation.
Harbor Lab already has shipping giants Great Eastern Shipping, Oldendorff, Veson Nautical and 90POE as customers and partners.
VentureFriends partner and seed investor Apostolos Apostolakis told me: We are fortunate to have experienced first-hand the steady progress toward that vision, and are even more excited about what the future holds after this new round. ”
The round, which includes existing investors Notion Capital, VentureFriends, SpeedInvest and The Dock, along with new investors Endeavor Catalyst and maritime VC TMV, brings the Greek startup's total funding to approximately $22.5 million. becomes.