The two maritime startup developers, Flagship Founders and Studio 30 50, are joining forces to pool their expertise.
The activities and portfolios will be united under the Flagship Founders brand. The aim of this cooperation is to jointly build the next generation of maritime tech companies in Europe and Southeast Asia. In future, a joint international network and teams in Berlin and Singapore will be available for this purpose.
Venture Studios build start-ups: This includes validating ideas, finding the right founders, spinning them out and then providing them with ongoing support through operational and strategic resources, network access and funding.
Founded in Berlin in 2020, Flagship Founders is the only European venture studio that focuses exclusively on building technology start-ups for the maritime industry.
Well-known shipowners behind Flagship Founders
The German venture studio is backed by the German shipowners F. Laeisz, Auerbach Schiffhart and Philipp Ahrenkiel. The company has built a number of digital start-ups, including Sealenic, Arinto, Kaiko Systems, Tilla Technologies and zero44.
Studio 30 50 was founded in 2023 as a joint project between Hafnia, DNV, IMC Ventures, Microsoft and Wilhelmsen. Since then, it has built up a portfolio of start-ups.
Studio 30 50 previously worked with a program-based approach, where startups are founded in batches. Flagship Founders, on the other hand, pursued a more individual venture-building strategy. In future, both methods are to be combined in order to make the best possible use of the respective advantages.
As part of the merger of the venture-building activities, Shanker Pillai, Managing Director of Studio 30 50, will become part of the management team and will lead the company together with Fabian Feldhaus and Malte Cherdron.
“The shipping industry continues to have a great need for innovation,” says Fabian Feldhaus, Co-Founder and Managing Director of Flagship Founders. “This is the next logical step for us to continue delivering real added value to the industry.”
