Spot Ship

What Spot Ship does

Spot Ship is a London-headquartered maritime SaaS company, founded in 2019 by James Kellett (CEO) and Henry Waterfield (COO/President), that applies AI and machine learning to compress ship chartering workflows from approximately six days to around two hours. The platform is built around a proprietary Digital Broking Assistant (DBA) with ML parsers that extract vessel and cargo data from unstructured email traffic at claimed 99.9% accuracy. Supporting modules include a Position Directory, global AIS-based vessel tracking (35+ million position updates weekly), a 7,500+ port database, Laycan Search driven by sea-route algorithms, an Emissions Calculator for ETS compliance, and a Voyage Calculator for TCE profitability analysis. The company also holds a £23 million UK grant to extend the emissions module toward a 90 million-tonne CO2 reduction target.

Spot Ship serves four primary maritime personas — shipbrokers, charterers, shipowners and operators — through a horizontal SaaS positioning. Revenue is generated via annual subscription licenses, with tiered, quote-based pricing (not publicly disclosed). The company operates from maritime hubs in London (HQ), Monaco, Warsaw (engineering) and Manila, and distributes primarily through direct enterprise sales supplemented by strategic integration partnerships with Sedna (communication), Sea (freight marketplace) and Vanguard Tech (war hull insurance). Named customers include MD Westrans and Great Ocean, with additional logos visible (Intranavis, CTL). In January 2026 the company closed a £1 million seed round led by Ventures.eu.

Name

Spot Ship

Legal name

Spot Ship Exchange Holdings Ltd.

Website

https://spot-ship.com

Company type

Private

Founded year

2019

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

11–50 employees

Short description

Spot Ship is a London-based maritime SaaS platform using AI and machine learning to reduce ship chartering timelines from six days to two hours, serving shipbrokers, charterers, shipowners, and operators globally with position management, vessel tracking, and emissions tools.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Maritime SaaS

NAICS

Support Activities for Water Transportation (4883)

SIC

Arrangement Of Transportation Of Freight & Cargo (4731)

akta.pro primary industry

Maritime Single Window & Regulatory Reporting Systems (TLAHAOAB)

Keywords

• Maritime SaaS
• Ship chartering
• Vessel tracking
• Maritime AI
• Position management

Headquarters

HQ city

London

HQ country

United Kingdom

HQ region

Europe

Offices4 records

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Software

Cost components

Personnel, Technology or R&D, Marketing or Sales, Infrastructure, Operations

Revenue model

1. SaaS Platform Subscription: Spot Ship operates as a subscription-based SaaS platform providing access to its software products including the Digital Broking Assistant (DBA) and Spot Ship Data. Customers receive non-exclusive, limited licenses to access the platform for internal business purposes based on their subscription tier.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion1 record

Distribution channels1 record

Marketing channels4 records

Core offering

Spot Ship is a maritime SaaS platform that uses AI and machine learning to automate ship chartering workflows. Its Digital Broking Assistant (DBA) ingests unstructured email communications, extracts vessel position data with 99.9% parser accuracy, and combines this with live AIS-based global vessel tracking to reduce chartering timelines from approximately six days to roughly two hours for shipbrokers, charterers, ship owners, and operators.

Product overview

Spot Ship is a unified maritime SaaS platform comprising a Digital Broking Assistant (DBA) and multiple integrated modules. The core platform provides AI-powered position management through the Position Directory, which uses machine learning parsers achieving 99.9% accuracy. Supporting modules include Global Vessel Tracking with live AIS data (35+ million weekly updates), Global Ports Database (7,500+ ports), Interactive Maps, Laycan Search powered by route algorithms, Emissions Calculator for ETS compliance, and Voyage Calculator TCE for profitability analysis. The platform processes unstructured chartering data (36 million emails annually) to serve shipbrokers, charterers, shipowners, and operators, reducing vessel chartering timelines from six days to approximately two hours.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Quantifiable outcome

• Chartering time reduced from 6 days to approximately 2 hours
• +5 more outcomes

Named customers4 records

Segments4 records

Ideal customer profiles3 records

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Integration3 records

AI capability5 records

Feature8 records

Partnerships

Three partnerships are on record, tiered strategic.

• Vanguard TechstrategicTechnology or Integration · 20 July 2025Strategic partnership to offer reduced-rate war hull insurance to Spot Ship users. Leverages Vanguard's AI technology to provide instant insurance rate calculations, enhancing efficiency in ship management workflows.
• SednastrategicTechnology or IntegrationSedna provides a data-driven communication platform for shipping and supply chain. Integration with Spot Ship enables customers to capture relevant data through Sedna with Spot Ship's industry-leading parser accuracy (99.9%), empowering market insights and data-driven decisions.
• SeastrategicTechnology or IntegrationSea is an intelligent marketplace for fixing freight. Collaboration with Spot Ship equips customers with tools for data-driven decisions in pre-fixture freight chartering workflows, leveraging Spot Ship's market-leading parser accuracy.

Scale indicators8 records

Recent moves6 records

Expansion highlights6 records

Direct peers

• Shipfix: Maritime data platform that ingests emails, messages, and documents to provide structured data for chartering decisions. Competes directly with Spot Ship on AI parsing of unstructured chartering communications and shipbroker workflow automation.
• FleetMon: AIS-based vessel tracking and maritime data provider with API access to global fleet positions. Overlaps with Spot Ship's vessel tracking module and shares the same shipbroker and charterer customer base, though FleetMon is primarily a tracking data vendor rather than a workflow platform.
• Signal Ocean: AI-powered maritime analytics platform serving shipbrokers, charterers, and shipowners with vessel tracking, voyage optimization, and market insights. Closest direct competitor to Spot Ship in the AI-native shipbroker tooling category, targeting the same personas and workflows.
• Hanseaticsoft: Provider of Cloud Fleet Manager and related ship management software, including vessel operations, crew management, and voyage planning. Targets shipowners, operators, and managers with SaaS workflows that overlap Spot Ship's vessel tracking and emissions modules.

Broad incumbents

• Veson Nautical: Established maritime shipping software provider with its IMOS platform serving chartering, operations, and freight management across global shipping. A broader incumbent offering workflow tools that overlap with Spot Ship's chartering position management and voyage TCE capabilities.
• Marcura: Maritime software group offering DA-Desk port cost management, payment solutions, and operational tools to shipowners, operators, and charterers. A broader incumbent serving the same shipping customer base with complementary workflow software.
• MarineTraffic: Widely used AIS-based vessel tracking and maritime intelligence platform. Overlaps with Spot Ship on live AIS fleet tracking and vessel position visibility, though MarineTraffic focuses more on tracking than on broking workflow automation.
• Kpler: Major maritime and commodities analytics platform providing vessel tracking, freight, and commodity data. While broader than Spot Ship, Kpler overlaps in AIS-based vessel tracking and market intelligence used by charterers and shipowners.

Emerging players

• Softship: Provider of IMOS (Integrated Maritime Operations System) for ship operators covering voyage planning, operations, and freight management. Overlaps with Spot Ship on voyage TCE, emissions, and operational efficiency use cases for shipowners and operators.
• ShipNext: Digital freight marketplace and ship chartering platform using AI to match cargoes and vessels. Adjacent competitor that overlaps with Spot Ship in digitizing pre-fixture chartering workflows, though ShipNext leans marketplace while Spot Ship focuses on data automation for brokers.

Market position

Strengths4 records

Weaknesses4 records

Competitive moat4 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights6 records

Customer concentration

• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/spot-ship

Compliance1 record

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Funding overview

Funding rounds3 records

Investors4 records

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Spot Ship