Harbor Lab
Assembly Line
Greek maritime software Harbor Lab raises €14.7 million to streamline port cost management
Harbor Lab, a maritime software company modernising the outdated accounting practices hampering the $14 trillion shipping industry, has raised a €14.7 million Series A funding round led by European VC Atomico. With participation from existing investors Notion Capital, Venture Friends, SpeedInvest and The Dock, and new investors Endeavor Catalyst and maritime VC TMV, the round follows a seed round of €6.1 million and takes total funding for the Greek startup to some $22.5 million. Atomico Partner Ben Blume will join the board.
There is a longstanding bottleneck at the heart of the shipping industry: a set of outdated, mostly manual accounting methods that many shipping companies still rely on to grapple with the complex web of costs that arise from their vessel’s port calls – the second largest expense for commercial vessels behind fuel, reaching around $2.2 million per vessel per year. This leads to inefficiency, inflated operational costs, and frequent disputes and delays in payments. New environmental legislation and mounting geopolitical crises are further adding to the complications, dangers, and unpredictability in costs of transporting cargo.