Welcome esteemed reader! From August 17th to September 2nd we shall be gradually revealing the participants to the PortXL 2022 Rotterdam Selection Days. This article will be periodically updated with innovative start-ups & scale-ups and what solutions are they bringing to the table. The companies are arranged in no particular order.
Who will our corporate partners select for the 2022 PortXL Program? We will all find out on September 7th – stay tuned!
Speeder Systems is designing and manufacturing vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) wing-in-ground-effect (WIG) vehicles. M-Speeder is an unmanned maritime vessel with user-in-the-loop control and is designed to carry 25kgs of cargo over 150kms range with the speed of a helicopter, operational flexibility of a boat. It can house a drone inside its cargo bay for reducing cost of offshore energy inspection missions.
CleanSubsea produces a complete capture, containment and filtration hull cleaning technology called the Envirocart™ System. This system enables the in-water removal, capture, containment and filtration of marine biofouling from a vessel’s hull without damaging the antifouling paint or polluting the surrounding marine environment. No fuel is wasted driving to a dry dock location and no time is wasted, meaning ships no longer need to be removed from service simply to get a hull cleaned. Hailing from Australia, they will be the company travelling the furthest to attend Selection Days.
Shellock specializes in providing real time visibility to customers with a combination of software and hardware. These can track individual packages, but also full-sized containers on vessels, providing asset visibility in all stages of the journey, including the critical last mile. The device can be tracked globally even if the shipment is on open waters. While the founder hails from Spain, the company’s HQ is based in Norway, where the PortXL team first connected with them at Norshipping.
QuinteQ is a flywheel energy storage technology that realizes up to a fifteen-fold improvement on energy storage, applicable in energy systems and grids worldwide, and returning more than 50 financial returns to investors. The Dutch company uses advanced materials with high tensile strength to allow them to experience energy density improvements that far outpace breakthroughs in battery technologies. Unlimited up- and down cycling. No performance degradation. No ancillary systems. More than 94% round trip efficiency. Based on patents licensed from the Boeing Company.
Ensemble Analytics’ Operational Port Systems is a platform that enables ports to utilize advanced analytics to increase efficiency with no associated capital costs or carbon footprint. The platform assimilates data and produces detailed advice for real time decision making on workforce allocation, training and investment. Efficient decision making can turn vessels around 8% faster, reducing emissions in port and improving local air quality. Created in the UK academic environment, Ensemble has made its way into the British ports ecosystem and is excited to cross the channel towards Rotterdam!
Seadronix has developed an AI powered autonomous navigation system. The first component involves a berthing monitoring system, which reduces the risk when the ship is approaching the port. The judgment on the distance between land the traffic density is the most crucial for the process. This system remedies the existing obstacle sensors and reduces the tiredness of the pilot and human error. And as a result, it reduces the possibility of the collision during the berthing process. The sensor module is the foundation of Seadronix’s AVISS system. Seadronix’s deep-learning algorithm extracts the ocean environment in real-time via this module.
ConexBird has developed vibration analysis hardware designed for mounting on container spreaders, and able to withstand the harsh conditions spreaders are subjected to. In addition, the Finnish company has created a suite of software to gather, process and distribute the data produced, including a custom-built machine learning algorithm specifically tuned for container analysis.
H2 Century has developed an add-on that will transform fossil fuel cars into Co2 free hydrogen cars. No changes to the engine are needed and in case the car runs out of hydrogen, it can drive like any hybrid on fossil fuel to the next electric socket or hydrogen fuel station. With this German technology being well below the cost of converting to a brand-new emission-free vehicle, the company hopes to see a fast decrease in vehicle emissions in the very near future with its safe, add-on solution.
Marinspector is a Remote Ship Inspection System (Platform and Tool) enabling evidence creation, automatic report generation and it is robust against connection issues. Marinspector is the latest product of Turkish innovators Orka Informatics, whose products have run more than 1 million individual training sessions globally. All R&D projects finalized with brand new products and commercialized globally.
SeaChange Group is a highly innovative renewable biofuels company. The company is beginning to introduce its patented, environmentally sustainable Bio Eco Hybrid™ fuels to the market as a drop in fuel for the maritime, off-road construction, rail and heating industries. Their market research indicates an increase of 6-8% in profitability for the biodiesel manufacturers and a drop-in fuel for end users which will increase billable operating time. SCG is starting to build a foundation for licensing agreements across the United States.
Mathclick develops AI based solutions for water applications. As of today, the company has developed two softwares for the optimization of CFD simulations in predicting behaviour of marine energy devices (MAtrix Data Enhancement Mission). The Italian start-up has been taking part in the Faros Accelerator in Taranto this year. PortXL is a strategic partner of Faros.
Finsulate developed a revolutionary antifouling product. Whereas all other products are coating products and need regular replacement, Finsulate is a physical barrier to fouling and has an expected lifetime of at least 5 years. Moreover, the product is sold as an easy to apply self adhesive foil instead of a paint and is environmentally friendly.
Skygauge designs and manufactures drones for industrial inspection applications. It has developed a drone that tilts four rotors to keep the main body stable and is equipped with a sensor that attaches to a metal structure, such as an oil rig, and collects corrosion data within a few seconds. This Canadian-built drone can conduct inspections of large metal structures, like oil and gas facilities, offshore platforms, bridges, and ships.
Psiori creates Crane AI, which provides 3D scans of the inventory and environment and cameras detecting the position of the load. Their technology allows the crane operator to avoid mistakes or train for special occurrences. They focus on data mining, neural networks, algorithm development, and predictive analytics.
Noble Gas Systems focuses on developing safe and lightweight compressed gas storage systems. Recently, the company demonstrated its latest generation of conformable gas tanks, which can be configured into existing vehicle architectures. Key benefits of the technology are its confirmability and improved safety along with cost reductions. The solution is suitable for the maritime and aviation industry.
The Decision Hall assembles a corporation of stakeholders with global reach who employ the latest Digital Engineering techniques to significantly reduce the risk, cost, and time required to run complex sustainability and climate resilience projects. By using advanced collaboration techniques, facilities, and digital modelling, they accelerate the risk and improve the outcomes of complex and urgent projects. They have been working for over two decades within the European Space Agency, which is using the same digital techniques to undertake high-level designs for space missions.
VertiDrive is the world leading innovative company for magnetic robot crawlers with applications such as hydro blasting (water jetting, UHP blasting) and abrasive blasting (wet/dry). The company states that using their robot crawlers lead to performance increase and large cost reductions. Their solutions can be used both in dry-dock as well as afloat. VertiDrive has further recently expanded its portfolio for the marine industry with a crawler specifically designed for cargo hold cleaning purposes.
Rombit Studio co-creates innovative and sustainable digital products which create value and increase efficiency for their customers. By applying digitalisation and predictive analytics technology, the company connects devices and platforms to existing infrastructure. Also, they gain new actionable insights from previously untapped data and apply advanced analytics to optimize operations. Most importantly, Rombit integrates new digital products within internal systems to evolve into real-time digital operations.
19 – MayMaan
MayMaan creates engine technology that is fuelled by 70% water and 30% ethanol. Their technology is designed to systematically decrease operational costs and significantly reduce your carbon footprint. The combusted fuel can be stored and delivered in the same fashion as gasoline and diesel without the need for major changes to the existing fuelling infrastructure.
20 – GBMS
GBMS focuses on developing systems that can reduce the number of containers lost at sea. They develop warning systems by understanding ship motions, physics, software, and sensor technology development. Unlike other systems, this specific warning system informs the crew in an early stage of the potential unsafe behaviour of container stacks.
21 – FUELSAVE
FUELSAVE is a clean tech and efficiency enhancement company with a wide IP portfolio that formed a JV between 4 renowned companies in the maritime sector (SDC / CBH / GKE / FS) to provide the first “one-stop-shop” for clean fuel (Methanol, HVO) and gas conversions (LNG, Ammonia, Hydrogen) in combination with leading injectors manufacturers and components from the industry and full upgrade of the bunkering and storage systems on the vessel. The JV is starting at first with pure methanol conversions for existing diesel-powered medium-speed 4-stroke engines for the maritime industry with worldwide service & support as a turnkey retrofit solution including class & flag state approvals to support customers on their clean energy transition & decarbonisation journey in an efficient manner by respected industry experts in their field.
22 – 12toZero
Developing a unique floating wind foundation specifically designed to combine buoyancy and hydrogen storage in a single structure. The combination of these functions in a single platform provides that basis for a reliable hydrogen supply for the decarbonisation of marine applications and port-based industries.
