Greek startup Harbor Lab: Secures $6.1M in funding for ‘harbor disbursement’ calculation software

Port charges are the second biggest cost after fuel

Maritime technology startup Harbor Lab has secured €6.1 million in funding to further develop its disbursement analysis software program. Disbursements are all expenses incurred by the Agent on behalf of the manager while the ship is in port. Port charges are the second largest cost after fuel for a shipping company, amounting to more than $120 billion annually, the company says.

Athens-based Harbor Lab is the first to offer SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) port bill analysis software that automatically calculates and evaluates port charges against port invoices in real-time. It will use the capital injection, as it emphasizes in a related announcement, to acquire talent in order to scale up its core products that are already bringing significant savings and greater transparency to the shipping industry.

Financing

The funding represents one of the largest amounts raised by a marine technology company during a seed round. VentureFriends and Speedinvest led the funding round, with participation from a large number of additional investors including DOCK, Signal Ocean, Motion Ventures, TecPier, Innoport, Charge VC and others. The company has also received investment from notable tech founders, including Alexandros Hatzieleftheriou, founder of Blueground.

Apostolos Apostolakis, Partner at VentureFriends, in a statement expressed his satisfaction in supporting Harbor Lab in its efforts to expand globally.

Philip Specht, Partner at Speedinvest, argued that Harbor Lab is one of those rare companies that can fundamentally disrupt the fundamentals of a giant industry.

Digitization gaps

The CEO and founder of Harbor Lab, Antonis Malaxianakis, stated among other things that many digitization gaps have been filled in shipping in recent years, however the process of “harboring software” in shipping companies is often inefficient and heailvy administrative, with little possibility of perception by the ship operator for actual costs associated with port calls. Harbor Lab’s DA Tool addresses these issues and can save approximately $2000 per port call when a vessel is active in the spot market and $1500 when it is in a charter period.”

Costs paid as “port” often include port charges, towing and navigation charges, which together represent the second largest operating cost after fuel for a ship operator.

Port

Through the Harbor Lab DA Tool, the ship’s manager can appoint a port agent, confirm decisions and compare fees for items paid through the “harbourers’ account”, reducing management costs by up to 500%. A ship operator can handle six to eight ships manually, but 40 through the platform. By leveraging the total volume of port movements handled through Harbor Lab’s platform, ship operators secure discounts on marine services and agency fees, generating savings that can average seven times the amount spent on the services of Harbor Lab.

Since its launch in March 2020, Habor Lab has received positive feedback from end users with more than 10,000 ship approaches to ports served with the software’s input. Those who used the software reported better cost insight, faster processes and savings of around 6% per port approach.