A.P. Møller Maersk (Maersk)
Canvas Category OEM : Logistics
A.P. Moller - Maersk is an integrated transport and logistics company; going all the way, together, for our customers and society. ALL THE WAY is our commitment to connect the world so that everyone has both the possibility and the ability to trade, grow and thrive. Increasing complexity in global supply chains is making them inefficient, vulnerable and unsustainable. At Maersk, our strategic vision is to become the Global Integrator, offering truly integrated logistics solutions that connect, protect and simplify our customers’ supply chains.
Assembly Line
Altris Welcomes Clarios and Maersk Growth as New Investors in Series B1 Funding Round
The Swedish sodium-ion battery developer Altris has successfully raised SEK 150 million in a Series B1 funding round, introducing new investors such as Clarios and Maersk Growth. The financing will be used to finalize Altris’ pilot production facility, and thereby enable commercial production of sodium-ion cathode material for battery cells.
Altris has been on a rapid growth journey since its foundation in 2017, developing its patented cathode material, Altris Prussian White, as well as electrolytes, battery cells, and production blueprints for market-leading sodium-ion batteries. The new financing is a first tranche of a Series B funding round, which will enable the finalization of Altris’ pilot production facility and position the company to meet the demand for sustainable and cost-competitive batteries that are sourced in Europe.
The Series B1 round introduces new investors such as Clarios and Maersk Growth to the company’s list of owners, investing alongside the existing owners EIT InnoEnergy and Molindo. With these additions, Altris now has strategic investors representing its key target industry verticals: gridstorage, low voltage vehicle applications and marine applications.
HD Hyundai launches world's first mega methanol-fueled container
South Korean shipbuilding giant HD Hyundai Co. marked a major milestone in the maritime industry on January 28, christening the world’s first mega methanol-fueled container ship at its Ulsan shipyard. The Ane Maersk, named after Ane Mærsk Mc-Kinney Uggla, the chairman of AP Moller Holdings and mother of Robert Mærsk Uggla, holds the distinction of being the first such vessel with a capacity exceeding 10,000 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs).
Captura raises US$21.5M, with investments from Maersk Growth, Eni Next and EDP
Captura announced it expanded its Series A funding round to raise an additional US$21.5 million to commercialize its Direct Ocean Capture (DOC) technology that harnesses the power of the ocean to absorb carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere.
Maersk Growth, Eni Next, and EDP Ventures came aboard as new investors in the round, bringing expertise across shipping and logistics, energy, and utilities to Captura’s team. Many of Captura’s existing backers also re-invested, including Future Planet Capital who led the expanded round, Equinor Ventures, Freeflow Ventures, Hitachi Ventures, Aramco Ventures, mTerra Ventures, and EIC Rose Rock Venture Fund.
Maersk Tankers and Penfield Marine to create a tanker company with unique reach
Maersk Tankers has acquired Penfield Marine to create a large-scale crude and product tanker company offering pool partners and cargo customers a wider range of services. The combined company will manage around 240 vessels, including approximately 45 vessels owned by affiliated companies.
Boxbot Raises $12M Series A Led by Playground Global
Boxbot, the vertical automation solution that sorts and stores packages for last-mile carriers, announced today a $12 million Series A round, led by Playground Global. Maersk Growth (the venture arm of A.P. Moller), Toyota Ventures, Pear Ventures, and Artiman Ventures also participated in the round, which brings the company’s total funding to $29.5 million. The funds will be used to accelerate the company’s mission of enabling carriers to provide more efficient delivery experiences and bolster the team’s engineering and business operations. Playground Global Venture Partner Richard Peretz, former CFO at UPS, will join the company’s board of directors.
Boxbot transforms conveyors into intelligent, three-dimensional package handling systems. The platform can store, sort, and sequence size-agnostic, high throughput payloads while requiring a minimal physical footprint. Storage density is maximized by dynamically adapting the space required for each payload in real time. The system is designed for flexibility and can be easily installed in both new or existing facilities.
🦾 Fabric teams with Maersk on Dallas robotic warehouse
Israeli robotics warehouse developer Fabric and logistics giant A.P. Moller - Maersk (Maersk) are setting up a 3,500-square-meter automated-fulfillment center in Dallas, Texas. The new facility, which will be powered by Fabric’s advanced robotic and software technology, features an AI-driven, automated e-commerce fulfillment solution in an urban environment that maximizes warehouse productivity while minimizing real estate footprint requirements.
⛓️🧠 Multinationals turn to generative AI to manage supply chains
Navneet Kapoor, chief technology officer at Maersk, said “things have changed dramatically over the past year with the advent of generative AI”, which can be used to build chatbots and other software that generates responses to human prompts.
New supply chain laws in countries such as Germany, which require companies to monitor environmental and human rights issues in their supply chains, have driven interest and investment in the area.
Dexory raises $19M for its robot-powered warehouse monitoring platform
The Series A round was led by Atomico with participation from several returning investors. Among returning investors was the venture capital arm of logistics giant Maersk A/S. Maersk is also a customer.
Dexory uses internally developed robots to scan warehouse shelves automatically and measure how much merchandise they hold. To reach goods located on high shelves, the startup’s robots can extend their height to 12 meters or about 39 feet. According to Dexory, its technology enables companies to perform warehouse scans up to 1,000 times faster than is possible with traditional approaches. The robots use depth cameras and lidar devices to map out the goods in a company’s warehouses. Its machines’ sensors can detect not only large items such as pallets and parcels but also barcodes. The robots send the data they collect to a cloud-based application called DexoryView. It generates a visualization of warehouse shelves that logistics teams can review to understand inventory availability.
Verity raises $32M in Series B funding to accelerate rollout of autonomous inventory drone system
Verity AG (Verity), creators of the first commercially successful inventory tracking solution powered by fully autonomous indoor drones, today announced completion of a 30M CHF ($32M USD) Series B funding round. The investment was led by A.P. Moller Holding with participation from Exor Ventures and existing and new investors. This funding allows Verity to quickly scale up operations to address the growing backlog of deployments with systems already installed in 30 sites across 13 countries on 3 continents.
Maersk embraces edge computing to revolutionize supply chain
Gavin Laybourne, global CIO of Maersk’s APM Terminals business, is embracing cutting-edge technologies to accelerate and fortify the global supply chain, working with technology giants to implement edge computing, private 5G networks, and thousands of IoT devices at its terminals to elevate the efficiency, quality, and visibility of the container ships Maersk uses to transport cargo across the oceans.
“Two to three years ago, we put everything on the cloud, but what we’re doing now is different,” Laybourne says. “The cloud, for me, is not the North Star. We must have the edge. We need real-time instruction sets for machines [container handling equipment at container terminals in ports] and then we’ll use cloud technologies where the data is not time-sensitive.”
Laybourne’s IT team is working with Microsoft to move cloud data to the edge, where containers are removed from ships by automated cranes and transferred to predefined locations in the port. To date, Laybourne and his team have migrated about 40% of APM Terminals’ cloud data to the edge, with a target to hit 80% by the end of 2023 at all operated terminals. Maersk has also been working with AI pioneer Databricks to develop algorithms to make its IoT devices and automated processes smarter. The company’s data scientists have built machine learning models in-house to improve safety and identify cargo. Data scientists will some day up the ante with advanced models to make all processes autonomous.
Pactum Raises $20M to Strengthen How Enterprises Negotiate Deals and Counter Recession Impacts
Pactum, the business negotiation technology pioneer that enables enterprises to unlock value in deals they typically can’t negotiate on their own, has raised $20 million in additional funding. Pactum’s solution – which uses advanced mathematical models, cognitive science, and best-in-class negotiation techniques – leverages intelligent bots to digitally engage third parties and negotiate mutually-benefiting contracts, leading to better pricing, payment terms, and supply continuity.
The investment was led by 3VC, with participation from new investors NordicNinja VC and Maersk Growth, and existing investors Atomico, Project A, Metaplanet, and Taavet+Sten. Maersk Growth invested after Maersk’s procurement team successfully deployed Pactum’s technology to negotiate spot trucking rates.
Pactum’s solution, which leverages digital bots that learn over time, creates a fast and responsive environment for users to digitally negotiate deals with thousands of suppliers at a time, leading to productivity gains, cost-reductions and stronger terms for all parties. On average, Pactum generates savings of 3%-5% when fully deployed by enterprise clients, creating hundreds of millions of dollars in unrealized savings.
A.P. Moller - Maersk and IBM to discontinue TradeLens, a blockchain-enabled global trade platform
TradeLens was founded on the bold vision to make a leap in global supply chain digitization as an open and neutral industry platform. Unfortunately, while we successfully developed a viable platform, the need for full global industry collaboration has not been achieved. As a result, TradeLens has not reached the level of commercial viability necessary to continue work and meet the financial expectations as an independent business.
The TradeLens platform was announced in 2018 and jointly developed by IBM and GTD Solution, a division of Maersk, as a blockchain-enabled shipping solution designed to promote more efficient and secure global trade. Maersk will continue its efforts to digitise the supply chain and increase industry innovation through other solutions to reduce trade friction and promote more global trade.
ISEE, the first company to achieve fully-autonomous operations with their self-driving yard trucks, raises $40 million in Series B.
Self-driving technology company, ISEE, has raised $40M in a Series B funding round led by Founders Fund, that included Maersk Growth, Eniac Ventures, New Legacy and other new and existing investors. This brings ISEE’s total funding to $70 million since the company was spun out of MIT in 2017.
With ISEE’s technology, customers can achieve 30% IRR, while simultaneously benefiting from a sophisticated tech stack that enables them to manage their operations with unprecedented efficiency. ISEE is winning too: revenue has grown by more than 20x in the past 12 months alone. Co-founder, President & COO Debbie Yu feels this is only the beginning, “With this new funding and strong customer pipeline, we’re excited to scale our operations and accelerate our business growth so that we can bring our self-driving technology to more customers.”
TradeLens: Transportation Transformation or Quixotic Quagmire?
TradeLens is the highly publicized blockchain global trade network launched over four years ago by Danish shipping giant Maersk. Beyond the initial hype about eliminating duplicate invoices and digitizing paper workflows, little has been said about it. What was TradeLens all about then, where is it now, and what can we take away from its progress (or lack thereof) to date?
It appears that while TradeLens has made substantial technical and practical progress, success is not a foregone conclusion. The system is far from ubiquitous adaptation, and even industries with high market participation, such as shipping, are not able to utilize the network to digitize trade at scale. In fact, only a miniscule percentage of transactions are conducted on a fully digitized basis.
BotsAndUs secures $13M in Seed financing led by Lakestar for its warehouse data intelligence platform with autonomous robots
BotsAndUs, a cutting-edge intelligence and robotics company has secured $13m in seed funding to expand its logistics-disrupting solution globally. Lakestar leads the round, with participation from Maersk Growth, Kindred Capital, and Capnamic.
BotsAndUs already won key customers across various industries. In addition to Maersk and Huboo, BotsAndUs works with Menzies Aviation, the air cargo company that services more than 200 airport locations, – including at Europe’s largest airport, London Heathrow. The company recently entered into a partnership with Maersk – the global integrator of container logistics, to collaborate with Maersk’s warehousing and contract logistics division, initially in one of their warehouses, exploring automating inventory management and acceptance processes, and with time to improve customers’ visibility and access to inventory across facilities. With the fresh capital, BotsAndUs is targeting markets including Germany, France, Nordics, USA, and Canada and driving product development.
Maersk Mobile: All the Way with Flutter
The Maersk App helps our customers to follow the progress of their shipment in real-time. In late 2017, the team built the app on native platforms (Android and iOS), with a very small group of engineers compared to the size of the web teams. Keeping up with requirements to solve the business needs of our customers was challenging and time-consuming as all development had to be done twice. Over time, tech debt for maintaining two codebases was getting high as the underlying platforms changed as well as new features and services for our customers in a rapidly growing userbase.
One additional underrated benefit is its seamless integration with Firebase (BaaS – Backend – as – a – Service platform by Google). Engineers can benefit from Firebase’s services like analytics, performance monitoring, crash reporting, app distribution to QA etc. which are available out of the box with minimal code/configuration changes.
We incorporated BLOC architecture to manage business logic and UI(view) separately. BLOC architecture helped us manage the state more effectively for the App as it was easy to have common state throughout the app for persistent user experience with improved security on user accessibility.