After a well deserved rest we’re back and ready for the year ahead.
We’ve set ambitious targets for 2025. We are dedicated to drive innovation for the maritime industry, and we are dedicated to the hard work we know we must add to reach our milestones.
In this final newsletter of 2024, we’re excited to recap our biggest achievements, reflect on lessons learned, and share how we're preparing for an even more impactful year ahead.
Have you seen the 2019 TV series Silicon Valley? At times, it feels less like a comedy and more like a glimpse into the realities of start-up life. Driving a global tech start-up forward is no quick fix—it demands hard work, long hours, and a thick skin. One of the toughest lessons? Not everyone you meet is your ally.
In Norway, we’re not exactly spoiled with ambitious political support for innovation. Unlike countries such as Denmark, Singapore, China, or the US, where governments recognize the importance of fostering tech and innovation, we often find ourselves navigating these challenges independently.
So, why build a global tech company from "Landet som ble for rikt" ('The country that got too rich', Martin Beck Holte)? It’s about pride in Norway’s maritime legacy, the joy of creating something meaningful with people you admire, and the thrill of working together toward success. Achieving this feels like winning the Premier League after hardly being able to hang in there for years.
In 2023, we launched ShipIntel as a modular freemium software. While it achieved moderate success, we knew we could do better. To drive greater impact, we revamped our business model in 2024, aligning it with ShipAtlas offerings and the requirements for listing on the Microsoft Azure Marketplace. This positions us to deliver even greater value to our users while expanding our reach within the maritime industry.
Although we knew changing our business models were necessary, implementing them was a challenging and demanding task, as we anticipated they might not be well-received by some users. It was encouraging to see that, over time, users began to understand and accept the changes, with many even choosing to upgrade to higher-tier plans.
ShipAtlas is for individuals who want to track vessels
ShipAtlas is designed for individuals who want a seamless and efficient way to track vessels. And the numbers speak for themselves—our user base saw remarkable growth in 2024:
Helping companies involved in maritime business make better decisions today with tomorrow’s maritime solution.
Despite the changes to our business model, ShipIntel achieved an impressive growth of over 200% in 2024. Even more encouraging is the loyalty of our customers—churn has been close to nonexistent among those who transitioned from the modular solution to the new and improved ShipIntel Essentials.
A major milestone in 2024 was being awarded the Microsoft IVS (Independent Software Vendor) program, culminating in our approval to be listed on the Microsoft Azure Marketplace. This recognition highlights the quality and innovation of our solution.
Together with Microsoft, we’re committed to offer the shipping industry a holistic working environment that is seamlessly integrated with Microsoft 365. And we’re doing it at competitive and affordable pricing, empowering more businesses to adopt smarter, and more efficient workflows.
Attracting students to the maritime industry and tech companies is essential for the future of the maritime cluster. That’s why we believe offering students summer internships is important to do so we can can give the future generation a glimpse of this very interesting global industry. This year, we had the pleasure of working with Fredrik and Frederik, who we hope to welcome back in the future!
2024 also brought changes within our company; some members moved on to new opportunities, and we welcomed new talents to the team. Finding people with the right experience and start-up mindset is challenging and critical for a company scaling up. During 2024 we’ve built a strong, collaborative core team dedicated to achieving our ambitions and goals.
We’ve strengthened our team with skilled backend and frontend developers and expanded our global presence. We’ve set up new teams in Kristiansand and Athens, and we will soon set up a team in Singapore to be strategically positioned in the world’s most vital shipping hub.
To celebrate these milestones, we ended the year with a great Christmas party at the Travellers Club in Oslo with colleagues (from all our offices), shareholders, partners and customers.
At the end of 2024, we reached a significant milestone by signing a major enterprise customer for ShipIntel Essentials, ShipIntel Pre-Fix, Maritime Email AI, and ShipIntel Post-Fix. This partnership begins with them setting up a pilot, and we aim to replace their existing chartering and operations software during 2025.
Reflecting on our journey, it’s incredible to think back to 2019 when I was told our product vision—one we still hold—was great, even necessary, but "impossible to achieve". Today, we proudly say, "Yes, we can, and we will" be able to deliver. Delivering on the promises we made back then motivate the whole Maritime Optima team, whose dedication and hard work have brought us to this point.
While we focus on working hard, reaching milestones, gain success and avoid failures, the world around us continues to change, shaping the global shipping industry. Geopolitical shifts were particularly evident in 2024, challenging the globalization that has driven the industry since the Second World War. Looking ahead, 2025 will bring significant elections in the United States, Germany, Ireland, Egypt, Greece, and Greenland, along with a new parliament in Iraq. Each of these events will undoubtedly influence shipping, from cargo demand to ownership, trade relationships, and environmental strategies.
The maritime industry thrives on globalization and standardized regulations. However, we’re left to question: is that gone forever, or is there hope that globalisation will return as a principle? The answer will not only influence the demand-side of the industry, but it will deeply affect the type of ownership of the vessels, trade partnerships, trade areas, the ton-miles, how we handle environmental challenges like carbon emissions, and the transition to environmentally friendly fuels and energy sources.
But one thing is for sure; working in the shipping industry has no dull moments, and Maritime Optima is committed to continue to drive innovation based on data and user-friendly software.
In these days many companies are hiring data scientist and are exploring machine learning and AI technologies. These technologies—along with data lakes and lakehouses—will play an essential role in future decision-support systems, and will influence the workflows and the way companies organize themselves.
We all have a long and exciting voyage ahead to the ultimate AI goal, and in the meantime, it is very important that we embrace and explore - to understand and learn - so we are able to bring the best with us into the future. Our strategy is to work together with the ShipIntel users to understand what they want, and use their feedback to continue developing the best and most affordable decision support system for companies involved in maritime business.
As I close this final newsletter of 2024, I’ll return to where we began:
After a well-deserved rest, we’re back and ready for the year ahead. We’ve set ambitious targets for 2025, and we are committed to driving innovation in the maritime industry. We know the hard work required to reach our milestones, and we’re ready to meet the challenge. Thanks to the great Maritime Optima team, our customers, our investors and partners. Without you, no success and no future.
We’re truly looking forward to explore 2025, and we are excited to collaborate closely with existing and new partners and the users of the ShipIntel subscriptions, to keep on developing a maritime decision support system helping companies involved in maritime business to make better decisions today with tomorrow’s maritime solutions.
Kristin & the Maritime Optima team
