• 2 min de lectura
• 2 min de lectura
Kpler, a top shipping data and analysis vendor, has secured an equity investment of $1 billion from San Francisco investment house Sixth Street. The deal values Kpler at nearly $4 billion - a stunning amount for a maritime-centric tech firm, and a reflection of the value that traders and shipping stakeholders place on data-driven insights.
The deal allows current Kpler management to maintain majority ownership of the business. A previous investor, Five Arrows, will be exiting its investment as part of the deal.
Kpler tracks and analyzes all sorts of physical cargo and asset movements, starting with the movements of vessels. It sells data and insights to the commodity, energy, shipping and defense industries.
"What sets us apart is our ability to combine proprietary data, advanced technology, AI powered intelligence, and deep market expertise to turn complexity into clarity," said François Cazor and Jean Maynier, Kpler's founders. "Our vision remains unchanged: to build one of the world's most distinctive global trade intelligence platforms."
Kpler started out as a tracking platform for LNG trade flows, serving customers in the natural gas markets. It still does this, following 430 million tonnes of LNG export shipments every year and delivering forecasts for utilities, shipowners and trading houses. It added crude oil to its portfolio in 2017, then dry bulk, chemicals, freight, metals, minerals, grains, refining, containers and pipelines. Along the way, Kpler has acquired multiple household names in maritime tech, including Spire, FleetMon, MarineTraffic and ChartDesk. With the onset of the Strait of Hormuz crisis, its data and AI analytics have found a prominent place in mainstream media (and social media).
With the backing of Sixth Street, it wants to spread out to even more verticals.
"Kpler's ability to aggregate, augment, and fuse data at scale across a fragmented physical asset ecosystem is highly differentiated, which is why customers increasingly see Kpler as the definitive platform for real-time decision making. We are thrilled to partner with the Kpler team and support them as they embark on this exciting next phase of growth," said Sixth Street's Michael McGinn and Henry Davies in a statement.
Fuente: The Maritime Executive
