OceanPro Accelerates Tech Innovation

OceanPro by Maersk, the first of its kind startup accelerator within the shipping and logistics industry, announced the graduation of its second cohort of start-ups showcasing the artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML) led solutions developed by them over the last 120 days.

The India-focused company of the Danish shipping giant also unveiled the start-ups that form a part of the third cohort as a continuation of its efforts to drive industry-wide digital transformation propelled by start-up led innovations in India.

OceanPro successfully launched its first set of 7 start-ups last year, that saw approximately 50% conversion to a production scale solution provider. One of the solutions developed from the initial cohorts is now being used in inland tracking by 3 countries and is even scheduled for a wider global roll out.

Another Virtual Reality (VR) solution developed also reached 12000+ employees giving them immersive learning experience of a Triple E vessel (one of the largest classes of container ships in the world).

Commenting on the partnership with the thriving start-up ecosystem, Navneet Kapoor, Maersk’s Chief Transformation Officer and Head of its Global Service Centers, said, “I am excited to see start-ups in the OceanPro cohort work on solving problems for our customers and for our teams around the world, at scale. One of the imperatives for OceanPro is to offer meaningful opportunities for the start-ups to accelerate their product development through direct and regular feedback from customers and end users, and I am glad that we can live up to that promise. The benefits for Maersk are real as well and we are committed to further scaling up our partnership with the thriving start-up ecosystem in India and other parts of the world.”

Reflecting on the year long journey with 2 graduating cohorts and launch of the third cohort, Sriram Narayanasami, The OceanPro Accelerator Program Sponsor and Global Commercial Process Head, Maersk, said, “At Maersk, as industry leaders we continue to foster innovation to fuel our transformation. Our OceanPro program supports this journey by leveraging the start-up expertise in building digital solutions that improve ease of doing business for our customers. We thank our start-ups for partnering in solving some important problems in our industry and we continue to be impressed by the depth of expertise that the start-ups bring with them.”

The graduation ceremony of second cohort witnessed the 4 start-ups: Stratforge, Tripz, Linkstreet, and Shipmnts.com showcase solutions for an industry faced with multiple manual interfaces and increasing demand for customization that help improve customer experience. These start-ups co-developed solutions focused on simplifying the customer payment process, optimizing the truck/ container moves, transforming the enterprise learning to make it more customized, effective and engaging, and digitising the document assessment process.

Encouraged by the success of the previous cohorts, the third cohort focuses on e-commerce platforms of Maersk (Maersk.com), optimizing the brand experience and customer journey. The third cohort consists of 4 start-ups – Entropik Tech, Senseforth, Soroco and Ocean Frogs.

Maersk.com is currently among the world’s largest B2B transaction sites with an average hourly revenue of USD 1.45 million.