Skip to main content
Show menu

About

We’re on a mission to build a smart, connected maritime world

Onboard is a technology startup that aims to transform the way maritime businesses operate. Our digital infrastructure connects vessels, crew, and onshore operations to the cloud and supply chain. Maritime businesses and developers benefit from greater access to data, massive efficiency gains, and the ability to innovate their business.

How it started

Co-founders Erwin Strik and Florus Wilming first met while working on technical projects in the maritime industry in Southeast Asia. Early on, they were frustrated by the lack of innovation and big picture thinking around data and digital transformation. Working on a data collection project for a large charterer and owners association inspired them to think about how data could impact the industry in a larger-scale way, which led to the foundation of Onboard in 2016.

Florus Wilming

Florus Wilming

Co-founder LinkedIn profile of Florus Wilming florus@onboard-platform.com
Erwin Strik

Erwin Strik

Co-founder LinkedIn profile of Erwin Strik erwin@onboard-platform.com

The future of the maritime industry is coming faster than you think

In 2050, the maritime industry - and business at large - will look drastically different from today.

New fuel technologies will be deployed at scale across global fleets. The volume of goods moved around the world will be significantly higher. The offshore energy industry will be transformed, and offshore wind will be at multiples of what it is today. The maritime industry will be leaner, cleaner, and vastly more productive. And improving operational efficiency will be the backbone of the entire journey - from where we are today, to our low-carbon, ultra-efficient fleet of tomorrow.

That is the world we want - and need - to build. But there are still huge questions over the velocity and exact nature of change.

Thrive in the low-carbon ultra-efficient future

For maritime businesses today that want to thrive in this low-carbon, ultra-efficient future, adapting comes down to two key questions:

  1. How can I improve operational efficiency and reduce my carbon footprint today?

    Vessels built today will still be in the water decades from now - but emissions regulations will be tightened over the coming years. So improving operational efficiency - and by extension fuel efficiency - of existing assets is critical.

  2. How can I make the right business decisions for the energy transition tomorrow?

    Low-emissions fuels come with a range of challenges. The technical and commercial feasibility of new fuels still needs to be better researched and developed. The energy density of low-carbon fuels will likely be lower than oil. And there will likely be a wider range of choice in terms of which fuels to use, with some better suited for inland or coastal vessels, and others for international shipping.

To help make the right decisions, maritime businesses need to collect and analyze vast amounts of data from vessels, offshore operations, and supply chains, to build clear pictures of their operational profiles, so they can build the right vessels and utilize the most suitable new fuel technology for different use cases.

The generational opportunity that the industry has not quite woken up to

At Onboard we aren’t just excited about these challenges; we firmly believe that positive change can be much more rapid, cost-effective, and easier even than most industry stakeholders realize. The reason? Onboard - and new technology providers like it - offer a very different approach to the linear innovation models the maritime industry has traditionally used.

Rather than an expensive upfront investment, we have deliberately built solutions for operational efficiency and innovation that can be implemented quickly, cost-effectively, and on as few as one or two vessels, and priced with a model that breaks the deadlock and makes a compelling proposition for both charterers and asset owners. Everything we have done is so you can have a fast, low-risk, cost-effective entry point to measure the ROI of the solutions and scale from there.

Furthermore, we are building for the future. Maritime businesses need to be thinking in the months, years, and decades ahead. And our solutions reflect this - with out-of-the-box solutions that can help you drastically improve efficiency in the short term, plus more flexible and advanced solutions to help you innovate your business for the energy transition and long term sustainability.

Find out more, explore our solutions

Onboard Apps - including Fuel Efficiency, Digital Logbook, and Vessel Monitoring - are built for quick and sustained wins in operational and supply chain efficiency. Where our apps offer a fast, out-of-the-box approach to efficiency gains, our Vessel API, Onboard Platform and Onboard Analytics offers much more flexible ways to access data, which can help maritime businesses innovate, build up detailed operational profiles of their vessels, and set themselves up for success in the low-carbon world of the future.