French startup Spinergie has just secured €11 million in Series A funding and sets sail to become a maritime tech market leader. The company is developing a smart fleet management platform specialising in emission reduction, vessel performance and operation optimization for the sector.
The maritime industry is incredibly important for our global world – and it historically has been. However, it is an industry that is in dire need of digitisation and needs to pick up the pace. Digitisation is needed to help maritime operators better manage processes and improve performance, as well as to reduce the environmental impacts of the sector.
Founded in Paris in 2016, Spinergie is aiming to do just that – transforming marine data into environmental impact and operational efficiencies. The startup has now secured €11 million in a new funding round led by Iris Capital and Swen Capital’s Blue Ocean fund, alongside key investors and business angels that include Polytechnique Ventures, Sanne Manders, COO of Flexport, Jean-Gabriel Levon, cofounder of Ynsect, and Antoine de Chassy, founder of Loft Orbital.
The brains behind the company, Jean Cristofari (CEO) and Louis Jozon (CPO), developed the platform based on their respective expertise in the offshore industry and fleet optimisation/management. The company’s solution offers accurate real-time operations tracking and benchmarking. It’s powered by millions of data points and leverages proprietary algorithms and industry knowledge to generate operation and vessel-specific recommendations.
Digitizing an industry
The maritime industry has been crying out for innovation and new tech developments. On an environmental level, digitisation is now an essential step to bring the sector in line with climate goals.
Louis Jozon, Spinergie CPO and co-founder, explained: “Decarbonizing the maritime industry is an enormous and incredibly complex challenge that requires a collaborative approach through industry partnerships and the most advanced technologies. We are developing the best possible products, connecting previously siloed data, facilitating interoperability between systems and providing recommendations.”
Shipping emissions account for approx 1 gigaton of CO2 per year and are expected to contribute to up to 17% of global GHG emissions by 2050 if it is not tackled quickly. Decarbonisation remains the biggest long-term challenge facing the industry and will require digital solutions to track and reduce emissions through operational efficiencies.
However, most operations are still followed up and managed on spreadsheets – which just isn’t leveraging data in the most productive or efficient way. Stricter monitoring and reporting will be quickly needed to comply with new international regulations such as IMO DCS or EU MRV and to stay on a pathway consistent with the Paris Agreement and the COP26 adopted in 2018.
Spinergie Solutions
Maritime Market Intelligence, Spinergie’s first solution, allows vessel managers and charterers to search and select a vessel anywhere in the world according to vessel specs, availability, and past performances. It analyses vessel environmental and operational performances, allowing commercial and operational teams to have more visibility of their competitors and suppliers across the globe.
Mélanie Le Guen, Principal at Blue Ocean added: “SWEN Capital Partners through its Blue Ocean fund is delighted to support Spinergie in pioneering digital solutions to help the maritime industry improve its operations, especially to reduce GHG emissions. If the shipping industry was a country, it would be the sixth-largest polluter in the world. We, therefore, need such highly scalable solutions to accelerate the transition of this industry. We will share our expertise and networks on ocean impact and the maritime industry to help Spinergie achieve its ambition and impact at a global scale.”
In 2021, Spinergie launched Smart Fleet Management, a solution suite enabling clients to monitor and optimize maritime operations (offshore wind, dredging, and bulk shipping among others). It provides real-time visibility, performance analysis and recommendations such as fuel consumption and emissions by activity mode, operational metrics and time analysis. The solution allows teams to anticipate and better manage their operations while automating regulatory reporting.
The Spinergie platform has been developed with maritime players in mind – it’s easy to use, and highly connected to existing systems and embedded sensors, making integrations as swift as possible. The vision is to use tech to make the industry more transparent, sustainable and efficient – and it’ll be simple to implement.
Jean Cristofari, Spinergie CEO & Co-Founder, explained: “This announcement comes at a critical time for the industry as maritime carbon emissions continue to rise and new regulations will revolutionize the way industry leaders plan their operations. We have ambitious goals and are delighted to welcome Iris and Swen as our first investors in Spinergie. They combine Technology and Maritime environmental expertise to help us bring widescale change in how our industry operates.”
Future Plans
Already the Spinergie solution is serving global maritime leaders including vessel managers and charterers companies such as Orsted, GE, Boskalis, and Nexans to help them measure, benchmark and optimize their vessels’ performance and maritime operations to significantly improve their environmental impact.
Moving forward, the funding will accelerate Spinergie’s growth by deepening its market leadership position in offshore wind and enabling them to further expand into shipping sectors. Specifically, it will support R&D programmes, the recruitment of new team members, especially data scientists and developers, and growing the global client-facing team with the opening of new offices in Asia, South America and the Middle East. The company will triple its team size by end of 2023.
