Building Sustainable Global Trade with Matt Heider, CEO NautilusLabs

On this week’s episode, we are joined by Matt Heider, CEO of Nautilus Labs, to continue the series on looking at startups as a lens to learn about innovation. Nautilus Labs is a maritime tech company that aims to advance the efficiency of ocean commerce. Nautilus is building software solutions for global shipping companies in order to minimize fuel consumption, maximize operations, and optimize fleet performance. In doing so, Nautilus Labs helps ship owners and operators reduce greenhouse gas emissions and enable sustainable global trade. Investors in Nautilus include M12 (Microsoft’s venture fund), Root Ventures, Quiet Capital, Trail Mix Ventures, and Amplifier, amongst others, bringing Nautilus’ total funding raised to $14.5 Million and making it one of the most well-funded maritime startups. Ships transport around 90 percent of the world’s goods across the seas and waste a lot of fuel on poor decisions while doing so. Despite the significant impact of shipping on our daily life, it historically has been a poorly regulated industry, along with very little technological advancements, leading to inefficiencies and fuel waste. Not only is this environmentally destructive, but it also damages companies’ bottom line. Nautilus Labs wants to change that. Its technology platform for shipping companies provides predictive analytics and AI solutions to reduce fuel consumption and maximize ROI. Matt is here to chat with us about this very unique vertical in the SaaS space. If you would like to learn more about Nautilus Labs and the maritime industry, tune into this FYI podcast episode. Key Points From This Episode: What is Nautilus Labs and how Matt became involved The need for ships to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to enable sustainable global trade Why shipping has always been poorly regulated The path Nautilus Labs has taken to optimize fuel consumption What noon reporting is and why it is so inefficient Maritime—what venture capitalists had to learn about the industry How Nautilus uses artificial intelligence for fleet optimization The five segments of the global shipping market About Nautilus Labs’ past successes and future goals   Tweetables: “It is really hard to believe that shipping essentially operates with an email when it departs, an email every day, and an email when it arrives and that is the level of insight…”— @Matt_Heider [0:20:47]