‘I’m hugely excited to have the backing of eminent maritime investors’

FrontM, the “Intelligent Collaboration. Anywhere” platform for the maritime industry, has raised $1.5m (£1.2m) in a pre-Series A funding round led by Jenson Funding Partners, Tradeworks.vc, Motion Ventures, and a syndicate of MarTech investors.

With the investment, FrontM will accelerate its mission to solve the connectivity and efficiency challenges that maritime businesses and their mobile workforces or customers face when operating in remote and low bandwidth environments.

Two million seafarers and up to 50 million remote workers in various ocean industries face day-to-day collaboration barriers, leading to poor crew productivity, engagement, and welfare.

It operates a multi-sided business model that connects ships and crews with maritime services and solutions providers, using Edge Computing and AI technology to effectively maximise the value of available bandwidth of existing satellite connections.

Ship owners, ship managers, operators, and maritime companies can now connect their ship-shore teams by utilising a range of apps in the marketplace for enhanced collaboration and human factor management.

Solution Providers can accelerate new solution development, integration, and distribution, especially by leveraging FrontM’s low-code developer and its unique technology.

Kiran Venkatesh, Co-Founder and CEO of FrontM, said: “Since our Covid-pivot, we evolved our maritime-focused product roadmap and completed a range of initial rollouts. I’m hugely excited to have the backing of eminent maritime investors who share our vision and are equally passionate about digitally empowering people.”

Shaun Hon, General Partner at Motion Ventures, Singapore, commented: “We see digitalisation rapidly accelerating across the maritime industry with new waves of solutions being offered.

“FrontM’s super-app helps stakeholders like ship operators and crews use, manage and distribute the increasing number of software applications in this industry onto one platform. Stakeholders now can work more seamlessly through a single platform, enabling more efficient and effective teams.”