Starboard is a maritime domain awareness platform that can pinpoint any vessel in the maritime environment, assess the vessel’s behaviour over time, and notify authorities about any illegal activity at sea.
Why we invested
Starboard helps reduce instances of illegal, unregulated fishing - a cornerstone industry both in Aotearoa and our neighbours in the Pacific. The platform also helps biosecurity and customs officers collaborate across nations, rather than limit stewardship activities to their Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ). In the context of ocean impact, Starboard empowers both private and government organisations to take action where it otherwise wouldn't have been possible.
Central to our investment thesis was the addition of impact terms through which we ensured that the integrity of the business’s impact is protected through clearly defined activities and by reducing the likelihood of unintended negative consequences.
Transaction Summary
Fund
Te Pae ki te Rangi
Date Invested
December 2023 (Seed)
Instrument
Equity Investment
IRIS+ Category and Theme
Oceans and Coastal Zones | Marine Resources Conservation & Management - SaaS
Measuring What Matters
Problem
Visibility over illegal/harmful marine activity is extremely low, making it difficult for governments and other agencies to protect our oceans and other subsea marine assets.
What
Provision of comprehensive, real-time behavioural insights from analysis of maritime activities to help prevent:
- illegal, unreported, unregulated fishing
- Human and drug trafficking
- Crime targeting submarine cables and other assets at sea
- illegal, unreported, unregulated fishing
- Human and drug trafficking
- Crime targeting submarine cables and other assets at sea
Who
Starboard’s end users are customs, commercial asset owners, and agencies responsible for monitoring of marine assets and operations, economic exclusion zones, fisheries. i.e. those responsible for protecting the ocean and those that depend on it.
How Much
Scale: Client base, including governments and associated agencies, subsea asset owners, and commercial fisheries.
Depth: Customers whose rights, assets, and/or operations are compromised or impacted while Starboard’s technology is in use, and are able to take action against offenders.
Duration: Length of time client remains a user, for downstream stakeholders the mitigation of economic and social harm is broad and enduring.
Depth: Customers whose rights, assets, and/or operations are compromised or impacted while Starboard’s technology is in use, and are able to take action against offenders.
Duration: Length of time client remains a user, for downstream stakeholders the mitigation of economic and social harm is broad and enduring.
Contribution
Data on maritime activity and behavioural insights would not have been available without Starboard.
Impact Risk
Unintended Impact risk: As a tracking and monitoring technology, the product can be used for harmful surveillance e.g. to prevent seaborne refugees from reaching their destination. Part of our investment terms places harm avoidance restrictions on the usage of the Starboard platform and the involvement of the board to mitigate potential unintended harmful usage.
Impact Measures
Number of customers, segmented by industry and use case: quantifying reach and monitoring how clients are using their technology.
Qualitative insights evidencing how customers use cases are contributing to long term impact outcomes.
Qualitative insights evidencing how customers use cases are contributing to long term impact outcomes.
