The startup Quartermaster, headquartered in Arlington, Virginia, just completed a $43 million Series A financing round in May. At that time, the company's idea was to use weather-resistant sensors to collect data and generate insights into maritime activities. Clearly, this idea is quite popular now, as Quartermaster has already completed a larger Series B financing round, with a funding amount of $140 million.
The founder and CEO, Neil Sobin, stated that this round of financing saw the early involvement of the software investment firm Insight Partners. Additionally, external interest in the business conducted by Quartermaster has been fueled by the Iran war and the resulting shipping disruptions.
“I believe that our confidence in the core arguments has greatly increased,” Sobin said in an exclusive interview. “A large part of our story this year is that the events happening in the world have brought about this clarity, confidence, and sense of urgency, and when you see that, you must seize the opportunity.”
In this round of Series B financing, approximately $100 million came from Insight, new investors, the defense sector investment institution Overmatch Ventures, as well as existing supporters such as First Round Capital. The remaining $40 million was raised through debt financing from investment bank Stifel.
Insight Partners, the managing partner, stated in a declaration sent to TechCrunch: " Quartermaster is building a distributed network for the maritime industry, and reliable, real-time data has always been difficult to obtain. The team's execution capability, along with the strong demand for maritime data and situational awareness, makes this an investment we are eager to lead. We are also proud to support Neil and their team as they scale up to meet the needs of commercial fleets."
The hardware named “Quartermaster” is actually called “SmartMast”, and its structure is quite straightforward. This startup company has integrated a camera and a radio into a device installed on the mast of ships, which is capable of collecting and transmitting real-time maritime data. This enables governments, shipping companies, and insurance institutions to obtain more information than with the current standard AIS, which is also known as the “Automatic Identification System”; AIS is essentially just a series of position pulse signals.
This real-time situational awareness data brings various opportunities to what Quartermaster calls "the largest blind spot on Earth." From helping ships avoid collisions, to better understanding traffic congestion in waterways, to rescuing missing sailors, these applications are all within reach. Sobin states that each SmartMast records dozens of GB pieces of data every day, and the company and its clients continue to discover new uses for this data.
"There are hardly any precedents in the maritime AI field, so it's exciting to have our own data sources," he said. "On the other hand, there are too many opportunities that are easy to pursue, and we've been working on them all this summer to see what we can achieve and deliver value to our customers."
Sobin indicates that startups spent a considerable amount of time communicating with various stakeholders in the maritime industry – not just ship owners and operators – to understand what functions they hoped this technology would accomplish.
"This is a neglected field. Seafarers around the world have been overlooked by technology for a long time, so when they meet us, they get very excited because they say, 'Oh, I have many ideas, let's work on them together,'" he said.
Sobin said that currently, more than 650 vessels from 25 countries are equipped with SmartMast, and the company has shipped over 800 sets to customers. The main reason for the gap between the two is that Quartermaster is about to begin deploying the SmartMast system across the entire fleet, which indicates that early adopters are indeed taking this idea seriously.
Sobin indicates that Quartermaster has been working hard to keep up with the demands. The company has doubled its manufacturing capacity and continues to adjust its designs in order to produce hardware more quickly.
“We know we can do it, and we have seen a lot of evidence that we have indeed grasped something huge and important in the world,” said Sobin. “So, when you’re in such a situation, what would you do? You would run faster, act quicker, and double down on this strategy.”
