Flagship Founders and Signal team up on maritime start-ups

Greece’s Signal Group has joined forces with German venture studio Flagship Founders to jointly develop new technology start-ups.

As informed, the companies entered strategic partnership under which Signal will acquire a stake in the Berlin-based Flagship Founders and will contribute data and APIs from its Signal Ocean platform to help speed up new venture development. 

The partnership includes a total investment volume of €2.5 million and complements the €3.5 million funding round Flagship Founders closed earlier this year.

Signal is an Athens, London & Singapore based business which runs commercial tanker pools, has developed a leading AI software platform, and provides investment to early-stage ventures. Its venture building and investment arm Signal Ventures has to date supported 15 start-ups in the shipping, supply chain and commodities space.

AI analytics firm OilX, Signal’s first start-up incubated through its venture studio, was sold to Energy Aspects in January this year, according to Signal.

Meanwhile, Flagship Founders is focusing on maritime technologies, logistics, and shipping. The company has already produced four successful start-ups since it was founded three years ago. Most recently, Flagship Founders venture zero44 announced a financing round with participation from Atlantic Labs, among others.

“Flagship Founders and Signal share the same view of the maritime economy and the success factors for building technology startups,” explained Fabian Feldhaus, Co-Founder and Managing Director of Flagship Founders.

“We also complement each other perfectly: Signal are one of the most innovative maritime technology players and cover the whole spectrum from commercial and operational to VC investment and corporate venture building.”

“The maritime ecosystem is global, but startup ecosystems are mostly local and tend to operate in silos. Coalitions like this are important to gain access to new investment opportunities and complement expertise and network reach. We believe that the shipping and technology depth of Signal coupled with data from The Signal Ocean Platform will accelerate the development of Flagship Founders’ventures and together we will advance venture building for maritime technology start-ups worldwide,” Nikolas Pyrgiotis, VP of Ventures at Signal stated.