{"id":341569,"date":"2017-05-22T17:00:29","date_gmt":"2017-05-22T09:00:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/techcrunch.com\/?p=1493387"},"modified":"2017-05-22T17:00:29","modified_gmt":"2017-05-22T09:00:29","slug":"shipamax-raises-2-5m-for-its-cloud-software-platform-for-the-bulk-shipping-industry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/shipamax-raises-2-5m-for-its-cloud-software-platform-for-the-bulk-shipping-industry\/","title":{"rendered":"Shipamax raises $2.5M for its cloud software platform for the bulk shipping industry"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/tctechcrunch2011.files.wordpress.com\/2017\/05\/shipamax-founders.jpg?w=738\" class=\"\"\/><\/p>\n<p id=\"speakable-summary\"><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/shipamax.com\/\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Shipamax<\/a>, a London-based startup and recent graduate of Silicon Valley accelerator Y Combinator, has raised $2.5 million in seed funding, money it plans to use to continue building and marketing its cloud software platform for the bulk shipping industry. Leading the round is Cherubic Ventures, with participation from AME Cloud, and FF Angel.<\/p>\n<p>Founded in 2016 by Jenna Brown and Fabian Blaicher, Shipamax wants to <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/2017\/03\/16\/steering-into-shippings-economic-headwinds-shipamax-pitches-new-efficiencies\/\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">bring the bulk shipping industry into the digital age<\/a>, specifically weaning customers, shipping brokers and owner-operators off of things like email, messaging and excel spreadsheets, the administrative tools they currently use for the booking and scheduling process.<\/p>\n<p>The problem isn\u2019t just that there is a lot of unnecessary back and forth, but also that the data exchanged is unstructured and therefore labour intensive to process and not very scalable. That\u2019s made even worse, Brown told me during a brief call, because shipowners and brokers typically receive in excess of 5,000 emails daily.<\/p>\n<p>In one example I was shown, the email consisted of what looked like the fields of a database but written in free-form text and presumably not adhering to any industry standard schema. Whatever the case, it looked archaic to say the least.<\/p>\n<p>Enter Shipamax\u2019s cloud software solution, which is designed to not only handle all communications between customer, broker and operator \u2014 in other words, internal and external communications \u2014 but also knock the data exchanged into shape so that the process itself is infinitely more scalable.<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s a big deal when the bulk shipping industry as a whole (not to be confused with containers, a different category of sea freight entirely) is said to be struggling with prices falling 90 per cent since 2008 and where every drop of extra efficiency really does count.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBulk shipping powers the world economy \u2013 the grains we eat, the steel we build with and the fuels we consume all get transported by bulk ships. Despite industry perils, demand for dry bulk has increased 40 per cent since the financial crisis. We\u2019re enabling the industry to keep up with the pace of change in technology and put them on the road to recovery,\u201d says Brown in a statement.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"680\" height=\"452\" src=\"https:\/\/tctechcrunch2011.files.wordpress.com\/2017\/05\/shipamax-founders.jpg?w=680\" class=\"attachment-large size-large wp-post-image\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"https:\/\/tctechcrunch2011.files.wordpress.com\/2017\/05\/shipamax-founders.jpg?w=680 680w, https:\/\/tctechcrunch2011.files.wordpress.com\/2017\/05\/shipamax-founders.jpg?w=1360 1360w, https:\/\/tctechcrunch2011.files.wordpress.com\/2017\/05\/shipamax-founders.jpg?w=150 150w, https:\/\/tctechcrunch2011.files.wordpress.com\/2017\/05\/shipamax-founders.jpg?w=300 300w, https:\/\/tctechcrunch2011.files.wordpress.com\/2017\/05\/shipamax-founders.jpg?w=768 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px\" \/>&nbsp;Shipamax, a London-based startup and recent graduate of Silicon Valley accelerator Y Combinator, has raised $2.5 million in seed funding, money it plans to use to continue building and marketing its cloud software platform for the bulk shipping industry. Leading the round is Cherubic Ventures, with participation from AME Cloud, and FF Angel. <a href=\"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/2017\/05\/22\/shipamax-raises-2-5m\/?ncid=rss\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n<div class=\"feedflare\">\n<a href=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/Techcrunch?a=sBl7uIgFP2U:W5jBaBcyoAU:2mJPEYqXBVI\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/Techcrunch?d=2mJPEYqXBVI\" border=\"0\"><\/img><\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/Techcrunch?a=sBl7uIgFP2U:W5jBaBcyoAU:7Q72WNTAKBA\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/Techcrunch?d=7Q72WNTAKBA\" border=\"0\"><\/img><\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/Techcrunch?a=sBl7uIgFP2U:W5jBaBcyoAU:yIl2AUoC8zA\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/Techcrunch?d=yIl2AUoC8zA\" border=\"0\"><\/img><\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/Techcrunch?a=sBl7uIgFP2U:W5jBaBcyoAU:-BTjWOF_DHI\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/Techcrunch?i=sBl7uIgFP2U:W5jBaBcyoAU:-BTjWOF_DHI\" border=\"0\"><\/img><\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/Techcrunch?a=sBl7uIgFP2U:W5jBaBcyoAU:D7DqB2pKExk\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/Techcrunch?i=sBl7uIgFP2U:W5jBaBcyoAU:D7DqB2pKExk\" border=\"0\"><\/img><\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/Techcrunch?a=sBl7uIgFP2U:W5jBaBcyoAU:qj6IDK7rITs\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/Techcrunch?d=qj6IDK7rITs\" border=\"0\"><\/img><\/a>\n<\/div>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~r\/Techcrunch\/~4\/sBl7uIgFP2U\" height=\"1\" width=\"1\" alt=\"\"\/> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5817,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[59,66,26],"class_list":["post-341569","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technology","tag-media","tag-techcrunch","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341569","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5817"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=341569"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341569\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=341569"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=341569"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=341569"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}