Bulk broker tech startup lands $2.5m in seed funding

London-based Shipamax, a participant in the logistics technology accelerator Dynamo’s initial program last year, is aiming to digitize dry bulk broker processes.    The London-based startup Shipamax on Monday said it has received $2.5 million in seed funding from a trio of venture capital groups.
   Shipamax, which participated in the first cohort of the Chattanooga-based logistics technology accelerator Dynamo in 2016, is aiming to revamp the way commodities companies and dry bulk shipbrokers interact.
   “Booking a ship for dry bulk commodities is a slow and painful process,” the company said in a statement. “Data is siloed, making it hard to work as a team – shipowners and brokers receive in excess of 5,000 emails daily. Administrative costs are incredibly high with room for error every step of the way. The price of booking a bulk ship has dropped by 90 percent since 2008 and hasn’t recovered since – putting strain on the industry to cut costs and become more data driven.”
   Shipamax was founded in 2016 by Jenna Brown and Fabian Blaicher, who at first aimed to build a technology-based shipbroker to upend the traditional market model, which was reliant on phone calls and emails between relationship-dependent brokers to find capacity.
   The two adapted their model to better enable the existing ecosystem of brokers after “they quickly realized that the problem was not the brokers, but the process itself,” and in early 2016 piloted the platform.
   “There is fundamentally no modern technology to help brokers provide the seamless experience we’re all used to in the consumer world,” the company said in a statement.
   The goal of the platform is to allow shipbrokers, shipowners, ship operators and charterers to collaborate and share data more easily, avoiding Excel spreadsheets.
   “We estimate over 50 percent of the work in bulk shipping is centered around communications,” Brown said. “Empowering employees with intuitive technology to increase the efficiency of these interactions will transform this industry in the next five years. And just like no one builds their own database, a technology company is required to provide this solution so the industry can focus on what they do best.”
   The funding was led by Cherubic Ventures with participation from AME Cloud and FF Angel.