Phaze Ventures Co-Leads $1.5 million Investment in Leading Shipping Technology Platform Voyager

Voyager, a Houston based startup enabling the commodity shipping market to operate in a unified and digital environment to coordinate critical and complex maritime operations for high value raw materials, announced today completing a $1.5 million seed funding round co-led by Phaze Ventures, ATX Venture Partners, Blue Bear Capital and GreenHawk Capital. Voyager’s new capital will be used to expand the Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) network’s offerings, further acquire and expand its customer base, and grow its engineering, development, marketing and sales teams. Previous investors include Techstars and Knightsgate Ventures, among others.

“Shipping bulk commodities like crude oil, gas and petrochemicals is still a highly manual and complex process, with $360 billion in ocean freight managed globally by email, phone, fax and text in a high-volume, fast-paced environment. Data is decentralized and unstructured, and the process is rife with inefficiencies, lost opportunities, costly human errors and, overarchingly, billions in losses,” said Matthew Costello, Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder of Voyager. “This infusion of capital will propel us forward in our mission to modernize and optimize the massive bulk shipping ecosystem with seamless, multi-party collaboration to help companies grow their sales and eliminate costly operational errors.”

Current partners of Voyager’s include Equinor, Norway’s leading energy operator, and other companies on the platform spanning brokerage, terminal, agency, ship-owning and major producers.

“Voyager’s solution will become even more critical as autonomous shipping and Internet- and IoT-enabled cargo ships pick up steam globally, in turn, creating new data and technology requirements that will require the power of our platform,” said Costello. “As well, applications for Voyager are already being explored across other verticals within oil and gas. As industries move away from email to digital-based communication, Voyager will become a critical system of engagement.”