Cargo ships docking at a business port incur costs called “expenses” and “port calling expenses”. These may include port fees, towage fees and pilotage fees. It is a complex patchwork and all ports run their very own routines, most of them in spreadsheets. Global port call costs for all ships have ended 220 billion dollars per yr.
The Greek marine software startup we recently covered when it raised a €6.1 million seed round — Port Laboratory — then raised a $16 million Series A funding round led by European VC Atomico.
Harbor Lab says the costs associated with bringing a ship into port are the second largest expense for business ships after fuel, at roughly $2.2 million per ship per yr.
The company says its platform can streamline these costs and reduce the margin of error for billing errors and overpayments from 20% to only 3% per port call.
Antonis Malaxianakis told me in a telephone conversation: “I was a potential user of the software we created. I personally manually checked over 20,000 checking accounts, so I was familiar with all aspects of the business and aspects of the industry. So once we had seed funding, could afford software engineering, and could focus on a very rigorous roadmap, we were confident of success.”
He added: “We are at war. However, in the shipping industry, we have increased freight rates and additional danger because of this. We are very focused on conducting proper KYC investigation of all parties involved. Both ships and agents scattered around the world. When the war broke out in one night, we had to punish 100 sleepover participants.”
Atomico partner Ben Blume told me: “We looked at the basic logistics and transportation of goods across the planet. We arrived at Harbor Lab with this lens. There are several different stages of a commercial sea voyage, each of which requires the right software… This seemed like the most exciting company to get involved with.”
He also said: “I think in Antonis you have a truly visionary founder, someone who brings a tremendous amount of energy to the business he is building, as well as deep industry experience.”
New environmental regulations and various geopolitical crises make addressing the complications of cargo transportation an increasingly urgent issue.
Harbor Lab already has shipping giants Great Eastern Navigation, Oldendorff, Veson Nautical CompanyAND 90POE as customers and partners.
Seed investor Apostolos Apostolakis, partner at VentureFriends, told me: “Being one of the first institutional investors in Harbor Lab, we were convinced of its potential from the beginning, also because it was articulated so clearly by Antonis. We have been fortunate to see first-hand the continued progress towards this vision, and after this new round, we are even more excited about what the future holds.”
With existing investors Notion Capital, VentureFriends, SpeedInvest and The Dock, and recent investors Endeavor Catalyst and maritime VC TMV, the Greek startup’s total funding will likely be roughly $22.5 million.