{mprestriction ids="1,2"} Voyager’s SaaS offers improved maritime communications and operational efficiencies along shipping value chain, freeing from email, fax, phone and text to save time and reduce human error.  

“Shipping bulk commodities like crude oil, gas and petrochemicals is still a highly manual and complex process, with $360 billion in ocean freight managed globally by email, phone, fax and text in a high-volume, fast-paced environment. Data is decentralised and unstructured, and the process is rife with inefficiencies, lost opportunities, costly human errors and, overarchingly, billions in losses,” said Matthew Costello, chief executive officer and co-founder of Voyager. “This infusion of capital will propel us forward in our mission to modernise and optimise the massive bulk shipping ecosystem with seamless, multi-party collaboration to help companies grow their sales and eliminate costly operational errors.”

Current partners of Voyager’s include Norway’s energy operator Equinor and other companies on the platform spanning brokerage, terminal, agency, ship-owning and major producers.

Mr Costello and his co-founder Bret Smart, chief operating officer executed a study that showed roughly 40 per cent of employee time in the industry was spent on low-value and low-complexity tasks, such as manual data entry, error checking documents and forwarding. Realising this was a global problem that impacts the entire maritime value chain of brokers, shipowners, producers and terminals, the founders devised the Voyager SaaS solution for streamlined operations and improved communications. Previous investors include Techstars and Knightsgate Ventures, among others.

Voyager allows companies to unlock their teams’ productivity, reduce operational risk and costs, and provide business and management with greater insights into supply chain seasonality, schedule variability and operational performance. According to Voyager, one company has identified over $4 million in annual bottom line savings by moving their business to Voyager and another identifying $1.5 million annually.

Voyager was built from the ground up to seamlessly allow multiple companies to work together in a real-time, shared environment to manage, track and analyse the lifecycle of a shipment’s voyage without sacrificing security or privacy.

“Voyager’s solution will become even more critical as autonomous shipping and Internet- and IoT-enabled cargo ships pick up steam globally, in turn, creating new data and technology requirements that will require the power of our platform,” said Mr Costello.

“Opportunities for innovation in maritime abound, as the need for technological advancements exist in one of the world’s biggest industries. Voyager is poised to be the leader in maritime operations. The founders have extensive expertise in liquid, dry and gas bulk shipping globally in all facets of the value chain, experiencing its pain points first hand. The Voyager cloud platform stands to bring global transactions and communications into the modern era - poised to save the bulk shipping industry billions,” said Chris Shonk, managing partner at ATX Venture Partners.

“People are used to seeing multicolored shipping containers and reading about investments in container freight technology, but few realise there is an industry four times larger by volume that forms the building blocks of global trade and drives container traffic - maritime bulk shipping,” said Tim Kopra, partner at Blue Bear Capital. “Voyager has its pulse on this critical sector, and has created a technology to fundamentally improve how the entire bulk shipping ecosystem communicates and operates with each other.” {/mprestriction}