StartUps in the maritime economy: friend or foe?

The concept of 'start-up' companies is no stranger in the current economy, but it is a relative newcomer for the maritime industry. Disruptive and at times too technological for more traditional players, incubators and accelerators are new concepts. MundoMaritimo talked in exclusive with international industry analyst and shipping expert Pascal Ollivier, who shed some interesting light on the new ecosystem surrounding the start-up universe.

The main problem for the start-up business is that the traditional players -liners, shippers, cargo owners, etc- don’t understand them and, therefore, see them as disloyal competitors instead of complementary ones."We have begun to see a few initiatives that began to introduce disruptive tech in the maritime trade and logistics space with accelerators in the US, Europe and Asia, such as PortXL in Rotterdam and Pier71 in Singapore," says Ollivier, who goes on to highlight that Latin America is less of an example as it is falling behind in the tech investment front. There's only one accelerator in the region and it is in Cartagena, Colombia.

In 2019 Delta X Ventures received 425 applications from all other world and selected 3 startups from Mexico and Colombia.

On the global investment front, venture capital firms invested 8.42 billion dollars in 445 companies in the maritime and logistics space in 2019.

https://www.mundomaritimo.net/noticias/startups-in-the-maritime-economy-friend-or-foe