Ocean Freight Exchange (OFE) has raised $3.3m in over-subscribed seed funding earmarked for company expansion.
Chief executive and co-founder John Hahn willl use the money, gathered over six weeks, to double the staff to 50 employees at OFE's Singapore and San Francisco headquarters.
"We think the current technologies in the market are inadequate," he told TradeWinds.
"Sadly, there aren't that many options so the customer suffers."
Seed investors include former Teekay Shipping chief executive Peter Evensen, Techstars managing director Jenny Fielding.
Venture firms Corigin, Nextview, Accomplice, Foundation Capital and US Investment Partners are also backing OFE.
Hahn said OFE provides artificial intelligence and predictive analytics technology to the dry bulk and tanker markets in a modern tech-stack version free of market conflicts of interest.
Its services include providing information on ship locations, vessel and fixture histories, market research and ship rankings related to time charter rates.
Hahn, former managing director at Noble Group, established the business in 2015 with Christian Widjaja, OFE's chief technology officer and Silicon Valley entrepreneur.
Since then, the company has attracted 1,000 users and raised previous capital through family and friends, Hahn said.
Prices for Shiprank are listed as free for "contributor," $199.99 per month for "captain" and $499.99 per month for "admiral," according to OFE's website.
