Maritime Data Startup Windward Raises $10.8M To Track The Oceans

Windward, which provides maritime data and analytics, has raised $10.8 million in funding led by Horizons Ventures, with participation from returning investor Aleph.

This brings the company’s total raised so far to $15.8 million.

The startup’s products currently include MARINT, which tracks vessel traffic using commercial satellites and alerts law enforcement and intelligence agencies about suspicious behavior, such as smuggling or illegal fishing.

CEO and co-founder Ami Daniel tells TechCrunch that the funding will be used to build Windward’s data and analytics platform, scale up MARINT, and bring FORESEA, a financial platform targeted to commodity traders, hedge fund investors, and analysts that is currently in beta, to market.

Daniel says Windward was founded to aggregate information about ship activity at sea, since “the data is massive, fragmented, and often intentionally manipulated.”

“As the company evolved, we realized that the potential applications of real maritime visibility were far more wide-reaching than just security and intelligence, and that our data could bring huge value across the ecosystem, from financial markets to global supply chains, international trading patterns, and more,” he adds.

For example, Windward’s data can be used to show how much oil is actually available in floating storages compared to how much has been reported, which is important for oil traders and anyone else who needs to keep an eye on oil prices.

While there are other companies that analyze maritime data, Windward relies on big data to stand out.

“While some companies look at aspects of what Windward is doing, no one is taking all maritime data, 24/7, analyzing it, vetting it, bringing cyber security algorithms to it, and making sense of it across verticals. What’s more, those providing maritime data today take an information services approach, a time intensive approach of people putting together reports, spreadsheets, etc.,” says Daniel.

The company’s growth plans revolve around scaling up MARINT and FORESEA, as well as finding other applications for its data analysis platform through data partnership programs.